Economic Criminals (2)
It had been a remark made in jest, or so it seemed at the time.
The suggestion that he should just sell the house he could barely afford to maintain and move into a room provided at the Lord's Castle.
But sometimes, people hide their sincerity within a joke.
It was a kind of wish, a hope that the other person would recognize the genuine intent buried beneath words that were too awkward to say outright.
'I should have spoken more firmly.'
Aiden, too, felt a twinge of regret now that it was all said and done.
He regretted not being clear and explicit, rather than wrapping his intentions in ambiguity.
He could make excuses if he wanted to. He could claim he hadn't been certain such a thing would happen, or that it felt intrusive to comment on his adjutant's private assets or lifestyle.
In truth, Aiden was just as flustered as everyone else. When he had tossed out that joke about selling the house, he hadn't thought much of it. He had simply thought, 'Won't people start raising land prices if they find out the adjutant bought a house here?' or 'If the adjutant starts living outside the Lord's Castle, the sycophants looking for favors will have a field day.' It was a lighthearted concern.
He truly had not anticipated that things would escalate to the point where con artists would drag his adjutant into their scheme, using him as the face of their fraud without his knowledge.
"They've got some nerve," Kalisa muttered, clicking her tongue after hearing the full story.
Surprisingly, she didn't look at Jamie with pity.
"Sit up straight. Your lack of discipline is the problem, but as the Administrative Officer said, in a fraud case, the perpetrator is always more at fault than the victim."
She poked Jamie in the back, forcing him to straighten up from his hunched position, his large frame crammed into a small chair.
"And to think they'd try this in the North, of all places."
While Aiden was busy reprimanding Jamie, Kalisa had already scanned the major documents and was sketching the rough structure of the fraud organization onto a blackboard.
"The overall structure is simple. As you can see, it's a triangular formation. The largest number of investors are at the bottom of the triangle. These bastards call this level 'Silver.' And the higher you go..."
While Jamie and Roland sat in the posture of sinners, learning about the form of fraud Kalisa had dubbed a "Triangular Scam," Aiden sat with his chin resting on his hand, lost in thought.
There was no reason for him to study pyramid schemes now. What mattered to him was the cleanup.
"There's one problem, isn't there?"
Seeing that Kalisa's crash course seemed to be winding down, it was time to return to business. At Aiden's question, the three adjutants turned their heads in unison.
"To crush these bastards, what should we do first?"
The first to answer, as expected, was Kalisa.
"We must start by revising the law. Imperial law has no specific provisions applicable to this type of fraud. At best, there are clauses related to lending, but even if we tie them to those, the sentencing won't be very significant."
"Hmm. Any other opinions?"
"Shouldn't we start by identifying the victims? Perhaps because they intended to flee, the documents of the victims who invested aren't properly organized. We're in a state where the items seized from the office might be all we have. We need to switch to a public investigation and actively solicit tips from the victims."
Roland added his input.
"Um, Administrative Officer."
The last to speak was Jamie.
"But how do we punish these bastards? Or rather, can we even punish them at all?"
At Jamie's low, somber voice, the other two adjutants stared at him as if he were spouting nonsense. They half-raised their hands, hoping to snap him out of it—if he still hadn't come to his senses, they were ready to smack him on the back of the head to bring their naturally sharp, if slightly loose-screwed, colleague back to reality.
However,
"Whew."
Instead of a reprimand, a whistle escaped Aiden's lips.
It was the sound their superior made when he saw something interesting or was genuinely pleased. The two adjutants, excluding Jamie, widened their eyes. They realized that Jamie's "nonsense" was actually the answer Aiden had been looking for.
"Exactly. That is the problem."
As Aiden curled one corner of his mouth upward in agreement, Jamie, having regained his confidence, continued.
"I definitely signed an investment contract as stated, and a week later, I received 10 percent of my investment as a dividend. Since I received it in the form of a promissory note, I have proof right here."
Clatter, thud.
He rummaged through a drawer and pulled out the note for everyone to see. The note had been issued by one of the top ten merchant guilds in the Empire, and it looked undeniably authentic.
"If they intentionally dragged me in to lure other residents, they probably haven't expanded their influence in the North all that much yet. No, at the very least, they were likely in the stage of building trust while planning for one big score."
"Then what does that mean? That no one has actually been defrauded yet?"
"It's highly likely. In this structure, for the con artists to take the biggest cut, they need to wait until the moment the largest number of victims are concentrated at the bottom of the triangle. They were probably waiting for that moment."
"Then we're in a bind!"
Roland shouted, his mouth agape. It was clearly a scam, but since they hadn't actually committed the fraud yet, there was no basis for punishment.
'At least in this world, attempted fraud isn't treated as a crime.'
This was the point where Aiden's irritation soared. It was good that they had wiped out the organization before victims emerged. But ironically, because no victims had emerged yet, there was no way to punish these con artists through normal channels.
A structure where a victim must suffer for the perpetrator to be punished. This paradox, which often infuriated the public in his past life, was being reenacted in a single room of the Lord's Castle office in the North.
"One thing we must be certain of," Aiden said, tossing the words out while the three adjutants were lost in their own thoughts.
"I don't intend to solve this case by limiting it to this 'Triangular Investment Scam' alone."
"Are you saying you intend to establish a universally applicable legal system?"
"Exactly."
The economic structure of the North was becoming increasingly complex. It was a situation very different from other territories where the majority of wealth was held by those in power. Therefore, solving the case as a political issue would be nothing more than robbing Peter to pay Paul.
"Even if the form and scale differ, similar fraud cases will continue to arise."
There are things that constantly tempt people, even if you do nothing. Money, honor, power. Unlike the other two, money feels so within reach that many people fail to recognize temptation for what it is.
"I intend to use this opportunity to issue a proper warning. At the very least, in this North, I will show that people who play games with money won't get off with the same level of punishment as common thieves."
Since his past life, Aiden had held the position that sentences for economic criminals needed to be significantly increased. The representative of a real estate consulting firm, the mastermind behind a massive jeonse fraud case in Yangcheon-gu, Seoul, had only received an 8-year prison sentence after swindling 8 billion won. And a fraudster who stole a total of 79.5 billion won in jeonse deposits from 355 tenants in Gangseo-gu and Gwanak-gu, Seoul, had only been sentenced to 10 years in the first trial.
It wasn't for nothing that comments on financial fraud news articles read, 'Isn't it worth it if you live 10 years and come out to enjoy all that money?'
'It might be difficult to eradicate financial fraud entirely, but at the very least, the law shouldn't encourage crime.'
Those determined to commit crimes would eventually do so no matter what, but even so, shouldn't they at least have the sense of alarm that 'If I mess around here and get caught, I'm screwed'? At the very least, that was what Aiden thought.
"To punish them as a proper example, we must prove that they have committed a crime."
The eyes of Roland, who was relatively quiet, sparkled.
"But we must not fabricate what doesn't exist."
"Don't worry, Administrative Officer."
"Do you have an idea?"
"Have you ever heard that saying?"
"What saying?"
"People don't just do one thing."
"......?"
"It means they dabble in everything."
Roland smiled broadly and confidently asked for just one day. Aiden nodded. If not for being overshadowed by Jamie, Roland was also an elite who lacked talent in making money, but as a victim of the same fraud case, there was no doubt that the three adjutants who had regained their senses were all top-tier talent.
"I'll wait for your report tomorrow."
"You won't be disappointed."
We shall see.
After the traditions of the North were spectacularly revived, the new residents of the North, moved by the sight of criminals hung on the castle walls like chunks of smoked meat, covered in filth, and dragged off to labor camps, began to conduct themselves properly.
"We have many guests for the first time in a while, Adjutant."
Because of this, the dungeon had been quite modest in its number of prisoners compared to its growing size, but thanks to the con artists who had been dragged in one after another like a swarm of rats yesterday, it was bustling for the first time in a while.
"The simple interrogations are finished, right?"
"Of course. Here they are."
The head jailer handed a file to Roland as if he had been waiting. The Northern dungeon had changed to be quite advanced, excluding the facilities. They checked to ensure prisoners hadn't stripped and hidden anything before being captured and completed basic personal background checks. If there were others captured together, they would separate them into different cells and conduct interrogations or investigations when time permitted.
"We haven't had time to conduct separate interrogations or investigations yet."
"They came in yesterday, so that can't be helped."
Jamie, who had been trotting along behind Roland, checked the file over his shoulder.
"They're from outside the territory? Figures. There's no way the locals of the North would pull something like this!"
It was a remark that made Jamie look like he was protecting his own people, but in reality, it wasn't such a naive story; it was a realistic conclusion. Those in the North who handled a bit of money—that is, those whose eyes were opened to how money flowed—were all well-known to the Department of Commercial Development. It was possible because the North was still a small neighborhood that had started from the bottom, but in other words, it meant there was no one in the North who could pull off such a thing while avoiding the eyes of the Lord's Castle.
"Then it's becoming increasingly certain."
"What is?"
"The stock exchange hasn't been open for long. It was only a few months ago that it was announced that such a thing would be created."
"In short, they didn't have much time to prepare."
"Yes. But this triangular scam is quite sophisticated."
It was a story that would have made Aiden scoff, but at least by the standards of this era, this fraud, which combined a pyramid scheme and a Ponzi scheme, was enough to bewitch ordinary people who had never thought about economics or finance.
"Thinking about it carefully, it seems like two concepts were mixed here."
"Two concepts?"
"One is giving 10 percent of the investment every week. Thinking about it, it seems like they were covering the profits of the early investors with the investment money of the latecomers."
"That's right. Then the other is a structure that generates profit through referrals, right?"
Roland nodded at Jamie's words and added,
"The explanation was very smooth. And the implementation was, too."
Then, he stopped in front of a cell.
"No matter how I look at it, this doesn't seem like it started in the North."
The man locked in the solitary cell began to tremble like an aspen tree upon hearing those words.
"Mr. Bob? Shall we have a little chat?"
It was the very same tout who had first approached Jamie.