Fund manager jailed for swindling basketball star

By Kim Rahn

A local court has sentenced a futures investment firm employee to a relatively lengthy jail term for swindling a basketball player out of billions of won.

The Seoul Central District Court Monday sentenced the 39-year-old Lee to four years in prison on charges of conning large amounts of cash from the unidentified star player and his friend with false promises of huge investment gains.

Lee’s collaborator, 37-year-old businessman Park, received a prison term of three and a half years for similar fraud charges.

As a way to make up for other losses he sustained due to poor management of a pool of funds Lee had collected from his acquaintances, he conspired with Park to swindle the basketball player and his friend in June 2008 while working at a firm affiliated with a top conglomerate.

While drinking together with the player, they told him that they were making hundreds of millions of won every month through investments in futures. Taking the bait, the player and his friend sent a total of 5.6 billion won to Lee.

Lee returned about half of the sum by borrowing money from other investors.

But he sent the rest to his collaborator Park, who spent it on personal business.

Lee confessed to the victims last year that he had lost the money, and fled. He recently surrendered to police.

The star player and former national team member in the 1990s retrieved only 700 million won but lost 1.7 billion won.

“The damage is substantial. Lee and Park took advantage of their close relationship with the victims, deliberately lying about being able to reap big earnings on money invested in futures.

The two also tried to conceal the money in false-name accounts, so heavy penalties are inevitable,” the court said in a ruling.