Two arrested in alleged fraud

GLENDALE — Two Los Angeles residents arrested for allegedly attempting to defraud a Citibank branch in Glendale of $30,000 on Monday will be arraigned Glendale Superior Court next month, police said.

Shelly Yun, 52, and Lance Kim, 47, were arrested Monday at the Citibank on the 400 block of North Central Avenue after bank officers flagged Yun’s loan application for possible fraud, police said.

Yun applied for a $60,000 unsecured loan at the Glendale branch in March as a line of credit for two fictitious businesses supposedly based in North Carolina, according to police reports.

Unsecured loans do not require collateral and are not tied to any assets.

She was eventually approved for $30,000 and was told to retrieve the check on Monday, Glendale Police Officer John Balian said.

The alleged fraud would likely have been successful had not Yun tried to collect the money at a Citibank on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, Balian said. Loan officers at that branch told Yun she had to pick the check up in Glendale where she had applied for the loan, he said.

Yun’s apparent attempt to skirt the Glendale branch raised a red flag with bank officers, who began fact-checking her loan, according police reports.

That’s when they discovered she had listed nonexistent businesses for the loan, Balian said.

By the time Yun and Kim arrived at the Glendale branch to pick up the check, bank officials had called Glendale Police with the information, he said.

Police officers detained the pair at the Glendale branch and eventually arrested them on various fraud-related charges, including burglary, grand theft, creating a false application for credit and forgery, according to police reports.

After their arrest, police allegedly found credit cards in several different names in Yun’s purse, in addition to Social Security cards for four people.

Kim had allegedly provided police with false identification during questioning, according to police reports.

He was held on $110,000 bail, while Yun’s was set at $60,000, Balian said.

They posted the combined $170,000 bail on Tuesday.

The pair must return to Glendale Superior Court in 30 days to be arraigned on the fraud charges, Balian said.

Details of the fraud scheme were still emerging Thursday as investigators for the Police Department’s Financial Crimes Unit began interviewing bank employees and continued to wait for loan documents, said Glendale Police Sgt. Brian Cohen, who heads the unit.

It was unclear exactly what caused the red flag to be raised on Yun’s loan, other than her apparent mistake in going to a Los Angeles branch to collect the money, he said.

Citibank officials involved in the investigation would not comment on the case.

But had it not been for the supposed gaffe, Yun and Kim would have likely made off with the money, Balian said, making the case much more difficult to pursue.

“The check was written, that’s how close it was,” he said. “Once the money is spent, it’s hard to get back.”