Incheon Criminal Attorney | Incheon Attorney Assists Client, Concluding Fraud Case With No Suspicion of Crime

The client served as the site manager of a large construction site and was responsible for the progress and management of the construction work.

In particular, as the site manager, the client carried out various roles, including ordering materials, managing the work schedule, and billing for payments, and was responsible for the overall operation of the site.

The case arose while the client was serving as the site manager.

The client came under suspicion of deceiving the victim and causing loss by billing the trust company (the victim) for construction payments at an amount inflated beyond the actual costs.

The client explained that the problem arose during the course of the construction work.

The victim claimed that the transaction statement the client submitted included excessive payments.

The victim suspected that the client had intentionally inflated the amount and prepared the statement falsely.

On this basis, the victim filed a criminal complaint against the client for the crime of fraud.

The client explained that, because they had billed exactly the payment that had been requested, they had not submitted any false materials.

The client also explained that, although it was true that the client had prepared the transaction statement as described above and billed the victim to resolve outstanding receivables from another construction site and had received construction payments, this had been done because there had been the victim's implied consent in the past.

This was because the victim had a history of having already approved similar amounts in past transactions and of having impliedly consented by paying them.

The client turned to an Incheon attorney and requested assistance to resolve this complex case involving the inflation of construction payments at a construction site.

The attorney explained that the crime of fraud, with which the client was charged, is as follows.

The attorney explained that the subject of the crime of fraud is a natural person. This is understood to include a juristic person as well.

For the crime of fraud to be established, the following elements must be satisfied.

First, an act of deception
There must be an act in which the client deceives the victim and distorts or conceals the facts. For example, falsely preparing a transaction statement to inflate the payment falls under this.

Second, financial loss
It must be proven that the victim actually suffered financial loss as a result of the act of deception.

If the victim paid an excessive amount, this becomes an important element in establishing the crime of fraud.

Third, intent of unlawful acquisition
It is necessary to prove whether the client had the intent to acquire property unlawfully.

If the client inflated the amount through a simple mistake, the crime of fraud may not be established.

Accordingly, the attorney and the client had to prove that no act of deception or financial loss had occurred. They also had to argue that there had been no intent of unlawful acquisition.

The attorney argued that the client's conduct did not meet the elements of the crime of fraud.

The attorney emphasized that the client had no intent to deliberately deceive the victim or to make an unlawful acquisition.

In the crime of fraud, property means another person's property, and property of one's own that is in another person's possession does not become an object of the crime of fraud. (Supreme Court, Judgment of May 9, 2012, 2010Do17192)

Therefore, the attorney established that, because the construction payments that the client was alleged to have falsely inflated and obtained were not themselves the property of the victim, the conduct did not meet the elements of the crime of fraud.

The client proved that, in preparing the transaction statement, the client had no intent to bill an excessive amount and that the victim had in fact impliedly consented to it.

Accordingly, the client proved that the client had no intent to deliberately deceive the victim.