Three employees of a local semiconductor company have been booked for stealing gold from their plant for nearly a year, and a jeweler has been arrested on charges of buying the stolen metal, police said Monday.
According to the Jongno Police Station in Seoul, the three who worked for an unidentified chip plant are accused of smuggling defective gold wires out of their factory between June of last year and April. They were all booked without detention.
The gold wires stolen by the trio totaled 3.8 kilograms worth some 240 million won (about US$209,000). The gold wires, used in the process of connecting or packaging semiconductors, were sold to the Seoul jeweler through friends, police said.
The jeweler is accused of having bought some 110 million won worth of the gold wire, despite knowing it had been stolen, on more than 19 occasions.
The police also booked another eight people involved, also without detention, and seized a total of 95.5 million won from the suspects. (Yonhap)