A man in his 30s who borrowed hundreds of millions of won and squandered virtual currency was sentenced to prison on appeal.

A man who squandered money he borrowed from acquaintances to invest in virtual currency was sentenced to prison in the first trial and also in the appeals court.

According to the legal community on the 23rd, the Daegu District Court dismissed the appeal of Mr. A, in his 30s, who was indicted on fraud charges on the 11th of last month and sentenced him to 4 years and 6 months in prison, the same as the original trial.

Last year, Mr. A was indicted on charges of embezzling money worth close to 1 billion won from nine people, including Mr. B, a member of the sports center he ran.

As a result of the investigation, it was revealed that Mr. A asked the victims to add insufficient deposits to the center or accepted money by promising to guarantee profits through proxy investment in virtual currency.

During this process, it was also confirmed that a negative bank account was opened and a loan was made using the member's name.

The prosecution believed that Mr. A committed this crime to raise money to invest in virtual assets.

The first trial court sentenced him to prison, saying, “He used his trust relationship to swindle money from many people and stole their names to obtain loans,” adding, “The scale of the damage was large, and most of the victims did not recover properly.”

Accordingly, Mr. A filed an appeal on the grounds of unfair sentencing, but the second trial dismissed the appeal.

The appellate court explained, “Only a very small portion of the damages have been repaid and the victims are pleading for severe punishment,” adding, “There are no different sentencing conditions from the original trial.”

Attorney Min-kyung Kwon of Daeryun Law Firm, who represented Mr. B, said, "At the time, Mr. A even promised that if he signed a contract for a building, he would take out a loan as collateral and repay it, but it was all a lie. We were able to get a reasonable ruling by emphasizing that Mr. A had no intention of repaying from the beginning and at the same time, the damage had not been recovered to this day."
 

Jeong Eui-jin (jej88@ikbc.co.kr)

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A man in his 30s who borrowed hundreds of millions of won and squandered virtual currency was sentenced to prison on appeal (link)