[Anchor]
A man in his 50s who went into hiding for seven years without paying the largest fine in history, amounting to 650 billion won, was recently arrested by prosecutors. The man was the mastermind behind a gold bullion smuggling ring, but he was finally caught in the jewelry district of Jongno, Seoul.
Reporter Kim Gyu-ri has this exclusive report.
[Reporter]
A residential area in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, on August 21.
Prosecutor investigators monitor the situation, and shortly after, a man stares intently at the spot where the investigators just passed.
As the man disappears back into the alley, investigators rush after him.
This is the moment when Mr. A, a man in his 50s who went into hiding in July 2019 without paying a record fine of 653.7 billion won, is apprehended.
[(You know. The fine amount is quite substantial, and there are matters related to the gold bullion.) Yes.]
Mr. A was the mastermind of an international smuggling ring that smuggled gold bullion between South Korea, Japan, and Hong Kong starting in 2015. He was sentenced in the first trial in 2019 to two years and six months in prison and a fine of 1.3 trillion won for smuggling about 40,000 1-kilogram gold bars.
The market price profit was around 40 billion won, but because the fine was calculated based on the original cost of the gold bars, the amount reached astronomical figures.
It drew widespread attention at the time as the largest fine ever for a single case.
[Cho Jang-hyun / Public Relations Judge at Busan District Court at the time (January 15, 2019, '8 News'): The nature of the crime is severe because he actively and over a long period exploited ordinary citizens by luring them with temptations such as free trips to Japan.]
When his sentence was significantly reduced in an appellate trial half a year later, Mr. A was released the day after the verdict, and the fine was cut in half, but it was still the highest in history.
Mr. A, who spent the next seven years hiding from the investigative net, can be seen casually chatting with acquaintances at a cafe in recent CCTV footage secured by SBS.
Prosecutors spotted Mr. A in person for the first time in seven years at a cafe in the jewelry district of Jongno, Seoul.
[Kim Hak-rok / Execution Division, Seoul Western District Prosecutors' Office: What was really unexpected was that he was not wearing a mask at all and looked completely nonchalant, like an ordinary person with no hesitation.]
After prosecutors tracked CCTV footage to locate a hideout set up in a certain area of Yeongdeungpo, Seoul, Mr. A was arrested and re-imprisoned.
(Video by: Lee Chan-soo | Video Editing by: Park Ji-in | Design by: Bang Min-ju)
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