Chapter 33
Chapter 33
-------------------------------------------------
Translator : M.N 1391
Chapter: 33
-------------------------------------------------
When Wang Dae-han raised his voice, Prosecutor Kim spoke coldly. Regardless, Kyung-wan continued to fire questions.
“Since it’s not in the southern region, is it in the central region?”
“Heh! Really!”
“Oh! I just got a bite. Is it in the Yeongdong region?”
“You there, ”
“So not in Yeongdong. Then Yeongseo region? Gyeonggi Province? Seoul?”
“How in the world are you doing this? I don’t know how you managed to reel in Prosecutor Kim, but, ”
“If not Seoul, then Incheon?”
“You there. Could you please let someone talk, ”
“So it is in Incheon, huh? Do you maybe have someone related to this man living in Incheon?”
“Hold on.”
Prosecutor Kim quickly shuffled through files and pulled out a name.
“His ex-wife, Park Geum-soon, resides in Incheon.”
“Aha!”
As if realizing something, Kyung-wan looked at Wang Dae-han and opened his mouth again.
“Does Ms. Park Geum-soon keep the bearer bonds?”
“...”
“About… 2 billion won?”
“...”
“If not 2 billion, then maybe 5 billion?”
“...”
“So around 5 billion. Then do you have other assets hidden elsewhere in bearer bonds?”
“...”
“There you go. You do. Besides your wife in Incheon, is there someone else you entrusted money to?”
“...”
“Oh! So there is? A relative? Not a relative… then from your wife’s side? Not in-laws… a friend? Huh? Not a friend either, so is it maybe… a mistress? Wow~. A man your age, still impressive. How did you meet the mistress? At a hostess bar? In her twenties? Thirties? If she’s in her thirties, then she’s a whole zodiac cycle younger than you?”
“You, you, you… who are you?”
Wang Dae-han stared at Kyung-wan with a pale, sweat-soaked face.
Kyung-wan simply gave him a bright smile and continued asking questions without answering.
Wang Dae-han kept his mouth shut, but it was useless. His body was honest.
Kyung-wan’s relentless questions narrowed the range bit by bit until they discovered that another 5 billion won in bearer bonds had been hidden with a hostess-bar-origin mistress living in an officetel.
This meant that out of the 100 billion won in criminal profits, 10 billion had been recovered. But 90 billion still remained. The road ahead was long.
Prosecutor Kim O-min was extremely satisfied with Kyung-wan’s abilities.
“Good work.”
“What about the chicken?”
“Here.”
When the interrogation ended and Wang Dae-han, his soul practically threshed out, was sent back to detention, Prosecutor Kim ordered chicken for Kyung-wan. Thanks to him, they were able to recover 10 billion won. Even if Kyung-wan was an inmate, chicken was a truly modest reward for his contribution.
“It’s a really amazing talent.”
“It’s nothing, really.”
Kim O-min nodded in agreement to Kyung-wan’s self-praise. Even cold-reading experts couldn’t pull this off like Kyung-wan. He watched him tear into the chicken with admiration before answering a sudden phone call.
“Yes, it’s me. Did you finish the raid? You found it? Good. Thank you.”
He hung up and spoke to Kyung-wan.
“Just as you said, around 5 billion won in bearer bonds came out of the mistress’s place.”
“That’s good.”
“For Wang Dae-han, it must feel like a bolt from the blue.”
“There are more bolts left to fall, aren’t there?”
At those words, Prosecutor Kim laughed pleasantly. Kyung-wan was right. There were still 90 billion won in unrecovered criminal profits.
For him, justice for financial crime wasn’t in a judge’s verdict, it was only complete when the illicit profits were recovered.
“It’s going to get complicated from here.”
“That’s to be expected.”
Kyung-wan nodded. Things hidden as bearer bonds or cash were simple once you found the location, but shell accounts, paper companies, and cryptocurrency assets were far more difficult to trace.
“So until we finish the job, I can keep eating chicken, right?”
“What if I said the faster you finish, the more incentives you get?”
“Oh! You know how to motivate someone. I’m in.”
Kyung-wan nodded, and thus began the true hell of Wang Dae-han, the fraudster behind the 100-billion-won financial crime.
First, the shell accounts were torn open. The number of accounts, the people managing them, their names, whereabouts, locations, even faces. Thanks to Prosecutor Kim preparing photos of everyone around Wang Dae-han, Kyung-wan simply pointed to identify his collaborators or subordinates.
Once the shell accounts were seized and he spelled out every cryptocurrency address and password letter by letter, all that remained was the recovery of assets hidden via paper companies. And with around 50 billion hidden through paper companies, the stakes were high.
But the moment Kyung-wan asked what letter the name of the paper company started with, Wang Dae-han convulsed.
“Don’t! Please! If you go further, I'll die! They’ll kill me!”
This wasn’t the same smug man from before. He bit his lips until they bled, like someone with severe compulsive fear. Had his hands not been restrained by Kyung-wan, he might have attempted self-harm.
Prosecutor Kim and the guard were startled by the scene. But Kyung-wan calmly slipped off his slipper and shoved it into the man’s mouth.
“Mmph! Mmmph! Ptooh! What are you doing!”
“You’re bleeding. You need to take care of yourself.”
Spoken aloud, it sounded gentle, but to Wang Dae-han, the words were unbearably vile. After all, the one tormenting him like this was Kyung-wan.
“Since he doesn’t need his mouth anyway, it’s better to put something in so he can’t hurt himself… Sir, do you have something for that?”
“H-huh? We do.”
When Kyung-wan spoke casually, the guard answered awkwardly.
There were indeed restraints designed to prevent violent criminals from harming themselves. They’d gathered dust because of human-rights concerns, but they didn’t need a full body restraint, just something to keep him from biting himself.
Prosecutor Kim spoke to the guard.
“Could we ask for it?”
“One moment.”
A guard outside brought in a mouth restraint.
At the sight of it, Wang Dae-han screamed like he was having a seizure.
“Don’t! You can’t! You have to stop here! I’m going to die!”
“Why would you die? Who’s killing you?”
Prosecutor Kim, who had been focused solely on the name and details of the paper company, snapped to attention at Kyung-wan’s offhand question.
Up until now, he had thought this financial scam was entirely orchestrated by Wang and his recruits, but was there someone else behind them?
Wang’s reaction suggested a higher figure existed. Kim’s blood boiled.
Kyung-wan looked back at him and asked:
“That part about someone killing him seems right. Should we begin?”
“Let’s at least get the name of the paper company.”
“No! Stop!”
Wang resisted, but Prosecutor Kim placed the restraint in his mouth and began asking about the name and structure of the paper company.
The answers didn’t require his mouth. His body answered truthfully, and Kyung-wan translated.
By the time the scheduled interrogation ended, Prosecutor Kim had learned two company names, one hiding 10 billion, the other 40 billion.
The moment the restraint was removed, Wang Dae-han laughed and cried like a madman.
“Hehehe! It’s over! It’s all over!”
“Sir. Who said you’re over?”
“Hehehehe… hic!”
At Kyung-wan’s question, Wang laughed until he eventually burst into tears.
Kyung-wan commented:
“Looks like this guy was just a figurehead too, huh?”
“No, a partner. The bastard took half of the 100 billion.”
But no matter how you looked at it, the 50 billion in the paper companies didn’t seem like Wang’s share.
Kyung-wan nodded.
“I see. Well, even fences knock the price down by half.”
Pawnshops offer half the appraised value. Fences take even more due to the risk.
Hearing this, Prosecutor Kim realized a truly big fish might be behind everything. A 50-billion-won paper company… probably the money paid to grease the wheels in politics or the justice system, the only reason Wang could get away with a 100-billion-won scam.
Kyung-wan asked Wang:
“Sir. Do you want to live?”
“...”
With a bitter expression, Wang slowly raised his head.
“Then tell everything. If you reveal it all and it goes to the media, you’ll become famous enough to survive. This is still a rule-of-law country. It's not like South America where gangs quietly kill you and pretend nothing happened.”
That statement gave Prosecutor Kim a clue.
“That’s enough for today. Wang Dae-han, let’s go.”
“Uh, Prosecutor Kim! My chicken?”
As Kim hurriedly dragged Wang out, Kyung-wan shouted after him. Kim answered:
“I’ll ask the warden.”
“I’ll trust you.”
What should’ve been a touching line somehow sounded pitiful… Kim chuckled at Kyung-wan’s modesty as he walked away with Wang.
And a few days later…
“So you’re the one called Lee Kyung-wan?”
“Yes. And who are you?”
“I’m Prosecutor Hwang Seok-chil.”
“Hello.”
A man with a flawless suit, cold demeanor, and good build, he radiated the aura of an elite who gets things done. Maybe he was the handsome superior that Prosecutor Kim disliked.
“What brings you here?”
“I have something to investigate.”
“What about Prosecutor Kim?”
At that, Prosecutor Hwang delivered unexpected news.
“He’s dead.”
“.. Why?”
“A car accident.”
Silence hung heavy for a moment. Then, seeing Kyung-wan lost in thought, Hwang abruptly asked:
“So tell me. Did Prosecutor Kim mention anything to you?”
“Like what?”
“I’m asking if he mentioned any names or anything related to the case he was investigating.”
“How could an inmate like me hear such information?”
“He told me everything. That with the 100-billion-won case he was working on, you were a great help.”
“He… talked about me?”
“Yes. !!!!”
In the moment Hwang let his guard down, Kyung-wan grabbed his wrist. Startled, Hwang widened his eyes as Kyung-wan spoke.
“Then I suppose he told you about my talent too.”
“Let go! Let go!”
“Six-nine-eight-eight!”
A guard rushed from behind and grabbed Kyung-wan’s arm, but his grip on Hwang’s wrist didn’t budge, if anything, it only grew stronger.
“I’ll ask a question.”
“Don’t!”
For some reason, Hwang was extremely flustered.
“Prosecutor Kim, he wasn’t in an accident. He was murdered, right?”
“I don’t know!”
“Are you on the same side as the people who killed him?”
“No!”
“Six-nine-eight-eight!”
Hwang shook his head violently, denying it. The guard sensed something dangerous unfolding and yelled at Kyung-wan, trying to pull him off, but Kyung-wan’s grip only tightened further.
Holding his wrist, Kyung-wan smiled brightly.
“Interesting.”
Why did that word sound so murderous?
His next words froze the room.
“It’s because of that, right? Creative Capital, the ‘creative investment firm.’ The 40-billion-won paper company.”
“L-let go of me!”