LOS ANGELES (CN) - A Newport Beach attorney was criminally charged Tuesday with defrauding clients of millions of dollars and laundering the money.
Stephen Young Kang, 46, was indicted on 20 counts of wire fraud and five counts of money laundering. The FBI arrested him on Aug. 10 at Los Angeles International Airport as he was about to board a flight to Seoul, Korea.
The federal grand jury indictment claims he defrauded a Gardena food distributor, Ottogi America, of $3.7 million on property purchases. Rather than buy the properties to help the business expand, Kang spent the money on himself and gave some to people he defrauded in other scams, prosecutors said.
In one of those scams, he took more than $1 million from a married couple who wanted to invest in a U.S. business to qualify for an EB-5 visa, but spent that money on himself and still other victims, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. When they complained, he used some of the money he swiped from Ottogi to try to pacify them, according to the U.S. attorney.
Kang is free on $750,000 bond. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison on each wire fraud charge and 10 years for each money laundering count.
The FBI and the U.S. attorney are seeking other victims, in California, Texas and Korea. Questions may be directed to the FBI at (310) 477-6565.
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