By Park Si-soo
A South Korean consul has been convicted of selling working visas to unqualified Chinese people.
The Seoul High Court upheld a lower court’s guilty verdict, sentencing the consul, surnamed Lee, 53, to two years in prison. He also was fined 23 million won ($20,060) and forfeited ill-gotten gains of 22 million won.
Lee was accused of issuing working visas to 369 unqualified Chinese people between April and September last year in return for money from a leather company here. He was also accused of leaking confidential state information. The consul is believed to have tipped off the company about the immigration office moving to investigate the case and helped it destroy evidence.
“He committed a grave violation of immigration law,” Judge Chung Sun-jae said. “He severely ignored his duty of fulfilling his work in a fair and transparent manner.”