Chapter 264
Chapter 264
Park Sang-yeop canceled all scheduled events and discussed it head-to-head with Taek-gyu.
“Cryptocurrency, state-owned oil fields, and petrocoins, all plausible stories are attached.”
Looking at the data alone, Venezuela, where everything is collapsing, or already ruined, seems like a holy land of some kind of blockchain.
“How did you come up with 150 trillion?”
Oil prices, which had fallen endlessly, have now recovered to around $75 a barrel thanks to production cuts in OPEC member countries, Big One, and the US economic boom.
Based on this, the reserves are about 2 billion barrels. A little less than 160 liters per barrel, a whopping 300 billion liters!
Mining costs must also be taken into account.
The reason Venezuela cannot get out of the economic crisis even with the world’s largest oil reserves is because its profitability is low compared to other oil producing countries.
But the most serious problem is… … .
“Venezuelan crude oil is a heavy oil that is difficult to refine. Would you like to import light oil from another country and mix it and sell it?”
Not all crude oil is the same.
Crude oil is mainly divided into light oil and heavy oil. It is classified according to the sulfur content. Simply, light oil is good and heavy oil is bad. Therefore, light oil is expensive and heavy oil is cheap.
Venezuela’s crude oil has the worst quality among heavy crudes. Considering the cost of mining and refining, shouldn’t a trillion liters be buried?
But if there really is such a state-owned oil field, would the government mine it and sell it, or sell it to the private sector if it was crazy?
“Is there anyone who believes this?”
Taek-gyu remembered the hogu(?) he had seen at the seminar hall.
“It was a lot.”
In fact, if you look at the various fraud cases, there are not one or two absurd contents.
If you buy medical equipment, loan it to the hospital and pay 10% monthly profit. If you invest in mother pigs, you will sell the piglets and give them 60% a year. I will salvage a treasure ship that has sunk in the sea. I will bring the dictator’s slush funds to Korea. During the colonial period, I would dig up the gold ingots hidden by the Japanese Government-General of Korea.
It is easy to think how stupid you are to be deceived by such words, but there are surprisingly many highly educated victims. There are even doctors, lawyers, and even university professors.
Park Sang-yeop nodded his head as if he understood.
“Well, the Madoff case involved all sorts of Hollywood celebrities, including Steven Spielberg, and institutional investors.”
Bernard Madoff, who served as chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Exchange, committed over $50 billion in fraud in the United States and is currently serving a 120-year prison sentence.
I dare not reach this point, but there are Jo Hee-pal and Joo Su-do in Korea. Although each method is slightly different, they are all descendants of Charles Ponzi.
Coin multi-level itself is not new. At one time, South Korea was swept away by the cryptocurrency investment craze, and there were many multi-stages that jumped on it.
However, at the beginning of the year, the coin price plummeted and the fever subsided, and the multi-level also decreased.
“It doesn’t seem like the existing multi-level coin will work, so it seems that a new fraud model has been created by combining it with the Venezuelan oil field.”
Choi Nam-woo, who has the title of Kang Jin-hoo’s cousin brother-in-law, is added, and the master piece is completed.
The Cheil Group corporation is in Korea, but the JG Gold Coin corporation is in Singapore.
Singapore, along with Hong Kong, is Asia’s financial center and tax haven. It is also easy to launder money or divert money elsewhere.
Seeing this, scammers aren’t usually smart.
Park Sang-yeop smiled bitterly.
“The problem is that you don’t do the right thing with such a good head.”
* * *
Taek-gyu also informed Hyun-joo Oh of the situation, and Golden Gate immediately started tracking the flow of money. In the meantime, Park Sang-yeop also mobilized all his personal connections to find out about the Chairman of Cheil Group, Soon-pyo Ham.
Fortunately, he was sniffing and tracking on a current affairs program. Park Sang-yeop was able to get information by contacting the PD through the president of edm Entertainment.
Park Sang-yeop put the data he received from the PD in front of Taek-gyu.
“This is funny. His real name is Ham Seok-hoon, not Ham Soon-pyo. He was convicted of seven counts of fraud including stock manipulation, planning real estate, and multi-level fraud, and was released from prison after being in prison for three years. He was doing real estate development in the Philippines until last year, but he came back to Korea last year and started this job.”
Taek-gyu asked.
“Where are you now?”
“According to the PD in charge, it is certain that they are in Korea, but they have not been able to confirm exactly where they are.”
Unlike Choi Nam-woo, who actively engages in external activities, Ham Soon-pyo (real name Ham Seok-hoon) rarely appeared in person.
When it was time for the appointment, Banthem CEO Ban Joo-won came to the company with materials.
“It has been confirmed that the source code of Jeil Gold Coin is a copy of Loida.”
“What is the value of cryptocurrency?”
He shook his head.
“It’s okay to say zero. There are countless scamcoins created in this way. It’s like writing a few numbers on a piece of paper and then claiming it’s money.”
“Is it possible to go public?”
CEO Ban Joo-won laughed.
“A normal exchange would not list such garbage.”
Even if it is listed, it will be listed briefly on a small and medium-sized exchange with little trading volume, and then it will be delisted soon.
‘It’s just as I thought.’
If it is a coin that is common sense, would it be sold in multiple stages?
“How much is the initial issuance?”
“It’s 20 billion.”
“… … .”
what’s so much?
If you sell them all for an average of 50 won, that’s a whopping 1 trillion won.
Park Sang-yeop said as if absurd.
“By the way, is this going to cost 10,000 won just for listing?”
Then the market cap is a whopping 200 trillion won!
It can quickly overtake Bantcoin and become the No. 1 cryptocurrency market cap. What’s even more absurd is that the price is higher than the crude oil in Venezuela.
Maybe 150 trillion is the value of crude oil and 50 trillion is the value of cryptocurrency?
The building in Gyodae was the branch office, not the headquarters.
There are probably several more places like this in Seoul alone. And there must be a lot of fun selling coins there.
The scary thing about the multi-level is that it doesn’t just blow your own money, it attracts everyone around you.
His family, relatives, and close friends, as well as his classmates, whom he does not know well later, are also in contact. And those people attract the people around them again, and the victims and the amount of damage increase like a snowball.
It is ironic that they are both victims and perpetrators.
‘Min Ha-young must be one of them.’
Anyway, even if it turns out that this is a scam, only Choi Nam-woo is caught, and Ham Soon-pyo is highly likely to get out.
In order for the victims to receive any compensation, it is imperative that they catch a ham-soon vote.
Taek-gyu called Jung Ki-hong, the head of the PR team. Hearing the story, he was furious.
“No, how dare you sell the CEO’s name to cheat! Shall we release a press release right now saying that the CEO and the company have nothing to do with it?”
Taehyung shook his head.
“Then I’ll take the money I’ve earned and run around.”
Even Jo Hee-pal, who is said to be the worst con artist since Dangun, ran to China with the money he had scammed, ate well and died.
For this reason, it is necessary to work together with the relevant agencies to tackle it all at once. To do that, you must first make it clear that this is a scam.
In developed countries, any amount of information is transparently disclosed, and the authenticity of the information can be checked at any time.
However, Venezuela is currently in a state of bankruptcy.
In fact, the economy is also in a state of collapse, and most foreign companies have withdrawn, and financial institutions have also withdrawn or closed their doors.
However, since Golden Gate is the world’s largest global IB, it was operating a branch in Caracas. Oil sales and international remittances are also taking place, although to a lesser extent.
“Then what would you like to do?”
Park Sang-yeop said.
“You just have to go directly to Venezuela and check if the Cheil Group really bought the state-owned oil field and how much oil reserves there are.”
If you just want to check, it is enough for a local Golden Gate employee to do it.
Taek-gyu added an explanation.
“We need clear evidence that it’s a scam. Something like official documents from related organizations or governments. That way, the scammers can be arrested right away.”
It is said that Venezuela does not have a dollar right now, so the entire population is forced to go on a diet, and even the middle class is digging through food waste bins. More than 10 percent of the population flees to neighboring countries because they can’t bear it.
As support or investment is desperately needed to overcome the economic crisis, if an OTK Company employee visits and requests for documents, it is highly likely that they will process it immediately.
Jeongguk-hong nodded his head vigorously.
“Very good idea, Vice President.”
Then he suddenly realized that the vice president was staring at him.
“But why are you looking at me like that… … ?”
Taek-gyu patted his shoulder and said.
“Come back safely.”
Jeongguk-hong was taken aback by those words.
“Yes? I mean, am I?”
“If you don’t like it, will you send someone else?”
“Oh, no. I will go!”
Ki-Hong Jung showed a firm determination that he could go to the African outback or the South Pacific jungle for the deputy president.
But when he answered, he realized that Venezuela was too far away. There won’t be any direct flights, so how should I go?
“I thought about it. I’ll talk to the local Golden Gate staff, so let’s go right away.”
“You mean right now?”
“I’ll give you a week off with the authority of the vice president, so while you’re gone, visit South America for a bit.”
Is it too late to say I can’t go?
“… … Okay.”
So Jung Ki-hong left for Venezuela a few hours after going to work.
* * *
Min Ha-Young has dreamed of becoming a webtoon writer since her high school days.
She learns hard in college, and when she draws, she thinks that as soon as she graduates she will be able to make her debut as a webtoon writer on a famous portal site.
However, among the many people who draw manga, only a few seized her chance. She received various outsourced work to earn her living expenses, tried her free serializations and challenged her competitions, but the results were not satisfactory.
Once again, she is discouraged after failing the competition, and she is contacted by a senior who has graduated to meet her.(Read more @ wuxiax.com)
It wasn’t really a close senior, but I went to the meeting place just in case I could get the information I needed.
Her Hong Chang-soo asked her if she wanted to try her side job, and Min Ha-young followed her company and heard that it was her seminar.
She didn’t quite understand, but she said that if she bought the best gold coin, it would go up like a bant coin.
For her skeptical woman, the fact that her CEO was a relative of Jinhu Kang was a decisive blow.
But she wanted to buy coins, but she didn’t have the money. She wasn’t good at home either. Her parents owned a small grocery store, and it was hard to pay off her debts to open her shop.
Min Ha-young took a loan of 7.5 million won from a savings bank and bought her Jeil Gold Coin, just as Hong Chang-soo told her.
Although it is an era of low interest rates, savings bank credit loans reached 20 percent. The cost of living was somehow solved through various part-time jobs, but he did not even dare to pay the interest, let alone the principal.
I don’t know if she didn’t buy it at all, and there is no way to pay off her debts other than that the best gold coin is listed and the jackpot explodes after buying it more than once.
However, since it cannot be sold until listed, the only way to earn money before that is to sign up a new member to buy coins.
Min Ha-young attracted her friends and fellow writers as her company taught her. However, she was not allowed to sign up as a member, and bad rumors spread quickly, and everyone avoided contact with her.
In the end, she had no choice but to go through her high school graduation album and send her mail to Taek-gyu Oh.
Hong Chang-soo asked Min Ha-young in her nervous voice.
“Is that friend still not in contact?”
Min Ha-young nodded her head.
“Yes.”
“Why are you doing that? You said you would come on Monday and buy 1 billion won worth.”
However, even after a few days have passed, there is no news. Hong Chang-soo felt as if all the fish he had caught had run out.
Out of frustration, I called and sent text messages to the contact number on the membership sign-up form several times, but there was no answer. (Taek-gyu, like business people, used several cellphones. Although he uses it for mobile games that has nothing to do with his business)
Min Ha-young remembered the appearance of Taek-gyu he saw that day.
‘Why did you buy the coin?’
Taek-gyu didn’t seem to believe much in Jeil Gold Coin. Even so, she signed up and became her downline. Of course, she won the lottery and has a billion dollars, so 252 million won may be nothing… … .
‘Did I buy it because I was pitiful?’
Min Ha-young said as if resigning.
“I probably won’t be able to contact you in the future.”
“Huh? What does that mean? why?”
When Hong Chang-soo asked a question, Min Ha-young avoided her answer.
But, to my surprise, Taek-gyu came back.
“I came to buy coins again.”
