A South Korean man has been indicted for fraud and appropriation of VND76 billion (US$3.3 million) from over 150 victims in Vietnam.

The Ho Chi Minh City People’s Procuracy on Wednesday issued the indictment against Kim Bum Jae and seven other suspects for fraud and property appropriation.

Kim, a 53-year-old South Korean national, is the director of Raon Vietnam Company and Khanh Asset Company.

The indictment showed that Kim met another South Korean man, who introduced himself as the director of IDS Holdings Company, in early 2015.

The man suggested that Kim become a representative of his company’s branches in Vietnam to seek investors and mobilize capital.

He stated that Kim would receive commissions worth four percent of the total amount raised, while the rest would be transferred back to the parent company in South Korea for forex trading.

From April 2015 to October 2018, Kim established 10 companies in Vietnam, of which four were used for illegal capital mobilization.

In order to gain trust from investors, Kim and his accessories claimed that their companies were subsidiaries of multinational corporations in South Korea, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

After getting the investment, Kim did not transfer investors’ money to the parent company, but instead spent it on personal purposes.

He also ran a Ponzi scheme, in which he used the money of old investors to pay interest to new ones.

Police in Ho Chi Minh received multiple reports from victims between early 2019 and mid-2020.

Kim was arrested in August 2020.

Investigation revealed that the South Korean man and his accessories had appropriated VND76 billion from 156 people.

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