[Anchor]
Daehan Land Trust, a subsidiary of the Military Mutual Aid Association, is a company that develops and manages trusted land. Employees here were caught pocketing hundreds of millions of won in company funds after establishing companies under the names of family members. Nevertheless, the company only handed down lenient punishments.
This is an exclusive report by Min Gyeongho.
[Reporter]
This is a large logistics center located in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province.
Standing four stories above ground and one story below, it houses a general logistics company.
Daehan Land Trust, which is 100% owned by the Military Mutual Aid Association, established a REITs business entity in 2020 and began operating this logistics center.
The business secures real estate to manage with funds raised from investors and distributes rental profits. In this process, a basement floor lease consulting contract worth approximately 247 million won was signed with a certain company.
However, it was revealed that the mother of Team Leader A from Daehan Land Trust's REITs Division was an internal director of that consulting company.
A similar incident occurred during a rental housing development project in Dongjak-gu, Seoul, pursued by Daehan Land Trust.
Last year, a real estate sales advisory contract was signed with a company whose representative was the mother of Manager B from the same team, while its registration was under the name of Team Leader A's father, resulting in a payment of approximately 220 million won.
It was revealed that employees belonging to this team made indirect investments by investing tens to hundreds of millions of won into another company put forward by Team Leader A's father, which in turn invested in the REITs operating the Icheon logistics center.
After receiving related tips, Daehan Land Trust launched an internal audit, but last November, it only decided on disciplinary actions ranging from one to three months of suspension for three individuals: Team Leader A, Manager B, and Deputy Manager C, who was accused of concealing contracts with the family-owned company.
Only after the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport conducted an additional special inspection did Daehan Land Trust dismiss all three individuals, while deciding on suspensions or salary reductions for other employees on the same team.
[Kim Sung-hoe / National Assembly Defense Committee Member (Democratic Party of Korea): Without professional management and supervision, frontline workers might think, "Is it okay for us to play around like this?" Isn't that what happened? (We need to ensure) that audit responsible personnel can operate with more professionalism and independence.]
Daehan Land Trust stated, "We will strengthen internal controls to prevent recurrence," while explaining that "suspension is a heavy disciplinary measure second only to dismissal and is not a light punishment."
The police have also launched an investigation after receiving a complaint filed by Daehan Land Trust accusing them of occupational breach of trust and violations of the Real Estate Investment Company Act.
(Video by Park Hyun-chul and Kim Yong-woo, Video Editing by Kim Jun-hee)
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