S. Korean Firm Says It Was Victim of a Scam in O.C.

A South Korean broadcast company, alleging that it was victimized in an embezzlement scheme that used Southern California’s large Korean business community as a shield, has filed suit in Orange County Superior Court to force one of those businesses into receivership and to block the transfer of funds from the U.S.

The suit is seeking the return of about $17 million that Chongju Broadcasting Co. Ltd. says it lost at the end of 1996 through an alleged scheme by a shareholder, Kang Han Chung.

Chung, who reportedly fled to China with the funds in 1997, allegedly set up a series of companies in South Korea and the United States, including La Palma-based Tae Il Distribution Inc., to help him keep the money from Chongju, the suit contends.

Tae Il Distribution is a subsidiary of a South Korean company, Tae Il Media Co. Ltd., according to the suit. The suit alleges that Chung placed Tae Il Media into the Korean equivalent of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in 1997 to thwart Chongju Broadcasting’s attempts to reclaim its funds.

An Orange County resident, identified as Won Kim, is named in the suit as a defendant. He is identified as a director of Tae Il Distribution.

The Orange County company, the suit alleges, was used in one instance to dispose of computer monitors shipped to the U.S. from the bankrupt Tae Il Media.

Funds from the sale of the monitors, the suit alleges, were diverted to Chung.