An official at the Korean branch of Emirates in charge of accounting, who misappropriated some 36 billion won in company money for more than six years, was sentenced to 13 years in prison.
The Seoul Central District Court on May 22 sentenced the 51-year-old Kim to 13 years in prison for violating the special criminal law on specific economic crimes.
Kim, who was serving as head of the Financial Management Department of the Korean branch of Emirates, diverted 674,000 won from his company's account in January 2006, taking advantage of the fact that it is able to transfer less than 16 million won from his company's account to another account as long as he and the head of his boss have signed it.
When the first crime was successful, Kim later embezzled a total of 36.2 billion won over 2,481 occasions through May 2012. He also bought real estate after transferring a large amount of money to the U.S. through an acquaintance of Taiwanese nationality.
When the crime was discovered, Lee fled the country in August 2012 and was arrested only in February 2019. The prosecution indicted Kim on charges of embezzlement, forgery of private documents and use of false documents under the special police law.
"The number of times the defendant used forged private documents came to a total of 1,178 times within the statute of limitations and the amount of embezzlement reached 36.2 billion won," the court said. "It is questionable whether the accused is seriously reflecting on the case, and since the company strongly wants punishment, severe punishment is inevitable."
