Prosecution seeks arrest warrant for former Regent Securities president

Prosecutors investigating the financial fraud case of Jin Seung-Hyun (27), president of MCI Korea, sought an arrest warrant Wednesday for Koh Chang-Gon, former president of Regent Securities, on charges of manipulating the company's stock price.

Koh is suspected of having colluded with Jin and James Mellon, chairman of iRegent Group, to rig the stock price of Regent Securities by intensively buying up 2.78 million company shares from Oct. 7 to Nov. 17 last year.

Koh is also accused of having forged documents and helped Hyundai Venture Investment, affiliated with MCI Korea, obtain loans worth 60 billion won from Regent Merchant Bank. The documents were altered to make Hyundai Venture Investment shares valued at 12 billion won look like they were worth 70 billion won.

Rep. Lim Jin-Chool of the Grand National Party told the press that his assistant had heard from Kim Young-Jae, assistant governor of the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), that Jin has amassed a slush fund of more than 10 billion won. The prosecution acknowledged that Kim had met Lim's assistant but denied that Lim had made such a remark.