Korean family lost $1m to residency conman

A "hopelessly trusting" Korean family paid $1 million for a bogus New Zealand residency application with most of the money used by a Korean national to buy a house in Auckland, a court was told.

The Court of Appeal rejected an appeal by Jung Soo Kim, who was jailed for 27 months, against three convictions for money laundering.

When arrested at Auckland Airport as she tried to leave the country, Kim told the officer: "It doesn't matter anyway. It's not your country's money."

The appeal judges rejected a claim by Kim's lawyer, Howard Lawry, that new evidence made the jury verdict unsafe.

At trial the jury accepted the Crown case that Kim's brother Jefferson Kim had defrauded the family out of $1 million.

The money was supposed to have been used to facilitate a residency application. But no application was ever made.

Kim claimed to the jury that she did not know about the fraud, believing the money came from a family trust.

The new evidence was said to cast doubt on whether Jefferson Kim had in fact obtained the money fraudulently. Mr Lawry said that the money was repayment of a debt.

However, the appeal judges said that the new evidence, including emails, did not "afford a credible basis to doubt the fraud which underpinned the Crown case".

If anything, the reverse was true.

The judges said that there was compelling evidence that the $1 million was transferred as an investment fund to New Zealand to support the family's supposed residency application. In March 2003, Jefferson Kim had become the tutor of the Korean couple's daughter, who went to Otago University the following year.

Jefferson Kim was engaged to act for the family in his capacity as "partner manager" in an international accountancy firm in relation to the residency application, though in fact he had no connection to that firm.

By January 24, 2005, the sum of $1 million had been transferred from Korea into the daughter's Dunedin account.

Jefferson Kim told the girl that he had borrowed $1 million from his sister which had been lodged in support of the residency application and "pressed for repayment of the advance".

He went with the girl to the bank where he was given a bank cheque.

The following day, his sister deposited the bank cheque into her bank account. That same day, she used the money to pay an outstanding deposit balance of $64,000 on the purchase of a house.

- NZPA