Revealing the Full Crime Details Through Prosecutor's Supplementary Investigation
Embezzlement of 450 Million Won in Company Funds Including Workers' Wages
The CEO of a manpower dispatch company who squandered about 400 million won in wages to be paid to workers on 'Baccarat' gambling has been indicted while in custody.
The prosecution, which received cases from the Labor Office and the police for wage arrears and embezzlement respectively, found additional damage cases through supplementary investigations and revealed that all embezzled funds were used for gambling, adding gambling charges.
The Criminal Division 2 of the Chuncheon District Prosecutors' Office Wonju Branch (Chief Prosecutor Ryu Joo-tae) indicted Mr. A (43) on the 8th on charges of embezzlement, gambling, and violation of the Labor Standards Act.
Mr. A, who worked as the de facto CEO of the manpower dispatch company, is suspected of embezzling 450 million won by transferring part of the 600 to 700 million won received from the original contractor for wages and subcontract payments for 319 workers last November to his own account.
According to the prosecution's investigation, Mr. A squandered the embezzled money about 60 times playing the 'Baccarat' game on internet casino sites.
It was investigated that when complaints were filed due to wage arrears, Mr. A persuaded the workers to withdraw the complaints by promising to help them receive advance payments from the Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service. The advance payment system is a system where the state pays a certain amount of unpaid wages on behalf of the employer from the Wage Claim Guarantee Fund, which is funded by taxes for workers who have not received their wages.
The prosecution reported that most of the 319 workers who did not actually receive their wages received advance payments from the state, and 265 of them withdrew their complaints to the Labor Office. Accordingly, Mr. A was only charged with non-payment of wages amounting to about 60 million won for 54 workers (violation of the Labor Standards Act).
The prosecution received Mr. A's case from the Labor Office for violation of the Labor Standards Act and from the police for embezzlement between March and April this year, and started a full-scale investigation in June. Suspecting that "there are more victims" based on workers' statements and the unclear use of embezzled funds, they conducted a supplementary investigation themselves.
Subsequently, the prosecution comprehensively and meticulously reviewed not only the transferred cases but also related case records scattered across several Labor Offices and thousands of pages of account transaction details to confirm the exact scale of wage arrears damage and to trace the use of the embezzled wages by Mr. A.
Through this, it was revealed that Mr. A embezzled about 400 million won in wages to be paid to workers and other company funds and used the entire amount for gambling funds, leading to his arrest on July 25.
While in custody, Mr. A immediately repaid part of the advance payments he received from the state, and the prosecution handed over Mr. A's asset inquiry details to the Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service to ensure that the entire amount of advance payments received from the state will be repaid in the future.
A prosecution official said, "Going forward, the prosecution will strictly punish malicious and habitual wage arrears offenders regardless of the amount, to prevent recurrence of wage arrears crimes and to do our best for the prompt recovery of damages for workers whose livelihoods are threatened by wage arrears."
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