[Anchor]

An SBS investigation has revealed that a man in his 50s who went into hiding for seven years without paying a staggering 650 billion won in fines has recently been captured by prosecutors. True to his past as the mastermind behind a gold bullion smuggling ring, he was finally tracked down in the jewelry district of Jongno, Seoul.

Reporter Kim Gyu-ri has the details.

[Reporter]

A residential area in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, on August 21.

Prosecution investigators monitor the surroundings, and shortly after, a man stares intently at the spot where the investigators just walked by.

As the man disappears back into an alley, the investigators rush in.

This was the moment when a man in his 50s, surnamed A, was apprehended after going into hiding in July 2019 to avoid paying 653.7 billion won, the largest fine in history.

[(You know. The fine is quite substantial, and there are matters related to gold bullion as well.) Yes.]

A was the leader of an international smuggling ring that smuggled gold bullion back and forth between South Korea, Japan, and Hong Kong starting in 2015. He was sentenced in the first trial in 2019 to two and a half years in prison and a fine in the range of 1.3 trillion won on charges of smuggling out some 40,000 1-kilogram gold bars.

While the market profit margin was around 40 billion won, the fine was calculated based on the original cost of the gold bullion, resulting in an astronomical amount.

It drew widespread attention at the time as the largest fine ever issued 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.]

After his sentence was significantly reduced in an appellate trial half a year later, A was released the day after the ruling, and the fine was cut by about half, yet it remained the highest in history.

Having spent the past seven years hiding and evading the investigative net, A could be seen calmly chatting with acquaintances at a cafe in recent CCTV footage secured by SBS.

Prosecutors spotted A in person for the first time in seven years at a cafe in the jewelry street area of Jongno, Seoul.

[Kim Hak-rok / Execution Division, Seoul Western District Prosecutors' Office : What was really unexpected was that he wasn't wearing a mask at all and looked completely nonchalant, just like any ordinary person without any hesitation.]

After prosecutors tracked CCTV footage backward to locate his hideout in Yeongdeungpo, Seoul, A was arrested and returned to prison.

(Video by Lee Chan-soo | Video Editing by Park Ji-in | Design by Bang Min-joo)