Prosecution Indicts Koo Youngbae and 7 Others in TMON-WeMakePrice Unsettled Payments Case on Additional 800 Million Won Fraud Charges

Further Investigation After 2024 Indictment

Additional 840 Million Won in Damages Identified

Thirteen Individuals Cleared of Charges

The prosecution has additionally indicted eight current and former executives, including Koo Youngbae, CEO of Qoo10 Group, on charges of fraud amounting to approximately 800 million won in connection with the large-scale unsettled payment incident involving TMON and WeMakePrice.

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office, Anti-Corruption Investigation Division 1 (Chief Prosecutor Kook Won), announced on the 29th that it has indicted without detention eight executives and employees, including CEO Koo, former TMON CEO Ryu Gwangjin, and former WeMakePrice CEO Ryu Hwahun, on fraud charges under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes.

Previously, in December 2024, the prosecution had indicted Koo, former CEOs Ryu Gwangjin and Ryu Hwahun, and eight others without detention for fraud totaling approximately 1.85 trillion won related to the large-scale unsettled payment incidents at TMON and WeMakePrice.

Koo Young-bae, CEO of Qoo10 Group, is attending the first trial session of the Time4Me unsettled payments case held at the Seoul Central District Court in Seocho-gu, Seoul, on April 8 last year. Photo by Yonhap News.

The prosecution stated that, following investigations into additional complaints filed by victims, they identified an additional 840 million won in damages and have now indicted these executives for these further offenses.

Koo and others are accused of exploiting the practice at TMON and WeMakePrice of temporarily holding settlement funds that should have been paid to sellers, and siphoning off these settlement reserves to entities such as Qoo10 as if they were personal safes, thereby embezzling the settlement money.

However, the prosecution announced that, for 13 individuals including internal staff and external business partners against whom complaints and accusations had been filed, it has decided not to indict them due to insufficient evidence to establish their involvement, taking into account their affiliations, positions, and roles.

The prosecution stated that it will ensure the charges are properly maintained so that the defendants are appropriately punished for their crimes, and that it will continue to respond strictly to multi-victim crimes that harm the livelihoods of citizens, doing its utmost to establish a sound economic order.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.