By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter
Exorbitant interest rates charged by loan sharks led a father to kill his 23-year-old university student daughter and take his own life. She was forced by the private moneylenders into prostitution as a means to pay her debt.
On Nov. 28, the 52-old-man, identified as Lee, was found hanging from a tree near a reservoir in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, three days after his daughter was found dead, strangled at her home, police said.
Police said the collegian borrowed 3 million won (then $3,000) in March 2007 from a lone shark identified as Kim, 31, to run an Internet shopping mall with a friend. The loan contract she signed termed the loan carried more than a 400 percent annual interest rate.
As she failed to repay the debt, the loan shark lent her more money, and her debt snowballed to as much as 15 million won one year later. The moneylenders threatened to inform her family of the borrowings if she didn't repay the debt.
As she was unable to, she was eventually forced into selling her body at a room salon. She returned about 18 million won she made there but still owed money.
The loan shark threatened her parents and to disclose that she was working at a brothel to get the money back. But at the same time, her father was also in an extreme financial pinch, with his own debt amounting to 70 million won. He strangled his daughter and took his own life a couple of days later. Police apprehended the group of loan sharks some four months later and found that it had lent money to 212 people at interest rates ranging between 120 percent and 680 percent.
pss@koreatimes.co.kr
