Cobalt Gate (3)
[In an analysis of the matter, it was confirmed that the so-called International Resource Exploration Institute was nothing more than a phantom research center with a P.O. box, and that Professor Vincent van Horn was actually an English literature professor who wasn’t even registered with the Geological Society.
From the beginning, the cobalt mine had never existed at all.
Then what had the Ministry of Foreign Affairs been basing its announcement on?
According to an insider’s testimony, 2nd Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Jeong Hyeon-cheol had bought roughly 900,000 shares of KNC International, including margin trades, in his wife’s name just before the report was released.
There was even testimony that he had borrowed the 2 billion won purchase price from Chairman Cheon Deok-yu.
That meant Vice Minister Jeong Hyeon-cheol had accepted a bribe from a private company and taken part in stock manipulation. We contacted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about it, but received no meaningful response.
We also tried reaching Vice Minister Jeong directly, but……
Cheon Deok-yu, who saw the article posted by Zhongxing Economic Daily, could not hide his shock.
This wasn’t just a matter of suspicion. It contained information that only an insider could possibly have known.
“How the hell…….”
He couldn’t make sense of it.
Very few people knew that he had handed shares to Vice Minister Jeong Hyeon-cheol as a bribe. And as for the exact amount, in truth there were only two people in the world who knew it: himself and the other party.
So how in the world had this been found out?
While he was still reeling, Vice Minister Jeong Hyeon-cheol called him.
The moment he answered, abuse exploded in his ear.
“You bastard!”
“What is the meaning of this?”
“What? What do you mean, what is the meaning of this? You screw me over and still have the nerve to talk like that?”
“What did you say?”
“You know who my brother-in-law is? You think I’m going down alone? I’ll never let you get away with this, you piece of shit! I’m going to catch you and send you to prison myself!”
“No, I…….”
“You son of a bitch! You’ve ruined my life! How the hell are you going to take responsibility for this?”
He didn’t even have time to get a word in before the curses kept pouring down.
He was just as out of his mind and just as flustered.
Before he knew it, Cheon Deok-yu shouted back.
“Fuck! Why the hell do you keep talking to me like a kid?! How old are you? Don’t you have parents?”
“What, what?”
In reality, Cheon Deok-yu was more than ten years older.
“We’ll talk later.”
Cheon Deok-yu cut the line unilaterally.
Now was not the time for this. Liquidating the stock came first.
The amount of money he had thrown into this operation alone was 15 billion won. None of it was really his own; it was borrowed from here and there.
If he failed to pay it back, there was no telling what kind of state he’d end up in.
I have to sell now. Right now!
But then……
The buying pressure that had been so strong just moments ago vanished as if it had never existed.
Now that the cobalt mine had been exposed as a lie, who would buy the stock?
Sell orders piled up, but there were no buyers. The stock price, which had seemed to be holding steady for a moment, lost its bids and immediately crashed to the daily limit down.
One more step…… I was just one step away.
It had been a chance to turn a worthless stock into more than 100 billion won.
Even if he were charged later, money like that would let him hire the best former-prosecutor defense lawyers and hold out. With so many politicians and officials involved, even if there were a trial, the worst he’d likely get was a suspended sentence.
But one article had brought everything to an end.
And the person left holding the final bag of what was essentially trash was none other than Cheon Deok-yu himself.
He screamed like a madman.
“Aaaaargh! Which son of a bitch throws ash on a pot that’s already cooked!?”
* * *
KNC International opened at 39,600 won.
The moment it tried to push through 40,000 won, the article from Zhongxing Economic Daily went up, and the stock board erupted.
Everyone seemed unable to believe it.
This wasn’t the age of a dictatorship anymore. In the twenty-first century, could it really make sense that the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs had accepted stock as a bribe and joined a stock-rigging scheme?
But as time passed, the other media outlets that had been hesitating began publishing their own stories one after another.
By then, the stock had already slammed into the daily limit down.
The operating group began dumping shares one after another in order to sell out. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs employees who had joined the speculation were just as frantic.
When the time came to sell, Cheon Deok-yu had promised to let them know in advance, but the article exploded before that could happen.
The reporters swarmed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and began firing questions.
“Is it true that Vice Minister Jeong Hyeon-cheol received shares in his wife’s name?”
The ministry spokesperson, drenched in sweat, tried to explain.
“It is still under confirmation. The Vice Minister did not come to work today.”
“Is it true that the International Resource Exploration Institute is a phantom research center with only a P.O. box address, and that the person who wrote the report, Professor Vincent van Horn, merely lent his name?”
“You’ll have to ask KNC International about that.”
“Has the Congo cobalt mine been verified?”
“We simply received KNC International’s report and released it as is. Whether it is true is still under confirmation.”
“What do you mean by that? Are you saying the ministry never verified the mine at all?”
“Verifying that is not the role of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We don’t know the details ourselves.”
The spokesperson kept repeating that he didn’t know, as if ignorance itself were a shield against responsibility.
The explanation was no different from pouring oil on a fire.
In other words, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had issued the disclosure without ever confirming whether the mine actually existed!
Sell orders kept flooding in, but there were no buyers.
Hundreds of thousands of shares piled up at the daily limit down, but no trades were made.
Until just before, there had been people who wanted to buy but couldn’t; now the bizarre situation was that people wanted to sell but couldn’t. They could do nothing but watch, day after day, as thirty percent of their wealth vanished.
Sun-woo shook his head as he looked over the posts on the board.
“So the big players made their money, and the little guys were the only ones who got hurt?”
“That’s about right.”
The little guys may have been the victims, but they weren’t completely blameless.
Buying just because the stock was rising, without properly researching the company first, was also a serious mistake.
People would research every detail—installment plans, subsidies, discounts—before buying a phone, yet when it came to stocks, they often bought on impulse.
One of the differences between stock investing and gambling was that results changed according to skill, not luck.
And just how thoughtlessly had they bought? There was even a post like this on the stock board:
I just called my brokerage, and they told me they can’t refund it. I’m honestly stunned. I’m going straight to the brokerage office to argue this out.
I heard stock purchases settle after two business days, so that means I haven’t even received the stock yet. If I haven’t taken delivery, shouldn’t they take it back immediately and return my money?
Even if I buy a 1,000-won item at a supermarket, I can return it within a week. How can they refuse to refund stocks I bought for several million won?
If anyone wants to join me in a refund protest, send me a private message.
“Most of the people who bought the stock probably didn’t even care whether the Congo in the article meant the Republic of the Congo or the Democratic Republic of the Congo.”
“What do you mean? What’s the Republic of the Congo, and what’s the Democratic Republic of the Congo?”
“It means there are actually two countries called Congo.”
The country north of the Congo River is the Republic of the Congo, and the one to the south is the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The cobalt mine was in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Even the reporters seemed confused, because in their articles they kept mixing up the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In truth, there had been more than enough safeguards to prevent speculation.
When a stock surged abnormally, the system would issue a warning, impose single-price trading, and even suspend trading for a certain period.
And yet the buying line never stopped.
Why?
Because the price kept going up.
Even when they knew the car was speeding toward a cliff, everyone climbed aboard believing they could jump out at the last second.
But there was a fatal flaw in that logic.
The flaw was that everyone else was thinking the same thing. No one imagined that they themselves would be the ones left holding the bomb at the end.
I gave a bitter smile.
“Everyone thinks they’re smarter than everyone else. That’s the biggest delusion of all.”
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