Background
Our client, A, worked at an overseas investment firm and had invested in Korean entertainment and performance ventures. A had dealt with B, the head of a Korean entertainment agency, on numerous occasions. One day B filed a criminal complaint against A for fraud, alleging that "A took several hundred million won from me as a deposit on the promise of arranging a large investment." The prosecution indicted A on the view that A had taken the money with neither the intention nor the ability to bring any investment about.
What Was at Stake
On the surface, it was plain that A had received several hundred million won from B, and B consistently maintained that "this was an investment deposit." Large sums had moved, and the complex structure of an overseas investment was involved, so the matter could easily be made to look like "A taking money under the guise of an investment."
How Changchun Helped
Changchun tested the real question — whether the money B sent was truly an investment deposit — against the documentary record. ▲ B had for some time been a debtor who had repeatedly borrowed from A without repaying (indeed, B had previously been convicted in a separate case of deceiving A). ▲ In that case, B had personally stated that "this money was repayment of what I owed A," and had that treated as a mitigating circumstance. ▲ Nothing in the investment documentation A produced mentioned any "deposit"; on the contrary, the documents B used when borrowing from acquaintances recorded the purpose as "covering existing losses." In short, the money was a debt B had to repay, not a deposit for a new investment, and the claim that A had taken money under the guise of an investment did not hold together.
The court held that the evidence submitted by the prosecutor did not prove the fraud charge and acquitted A (the opposing party's application for a compensation order was also dismissed). Even in transactions involving large sums, calmly testing the real reason the money moved against the documentary record can reveal an entirely different picture. When facing an unfounded complaint, nothing matters more than reconstructing the facts through objective evidence rather than emotion. Outcomes depend on the facts of each case and may differ.