Promising Vocal Singer Ruined By Greed

A musician and the former college part-time lecturer who studied in Italy was caught blackmailing a beverage company to solve his enormous debts.

Seoul Namdaemun Police Station applied for an arrest warrant for Kim who blackmailed a beverage company to extract 200 million won. According to the police, he called and threatened the company by saying, “I would put some poisons into your beverages if you do not hand me 200 million won by a cash card.”

Kim studied vocal music from 1995 to 2000 in Italy. He got back to Korea in 2000 and served as a part-time lecturer at a local college from 2001. He was a well-recognized tenor, playing a leading singer in various opera performances last year.

His life started to tumble down when his father died of an illness after a failure in his business. His family so badly deteriorated that his mother had to stay at her relative`s home. However, all he could get from the college was just 400,000 won worth of part time remuneration per month and some private tutoring fees.

His wife, also a vocalist, served as a part time lecturer at a college, but Kim could not keep his spending within his boundary.

He began to lending money from his colleagues and friends. He lied to people, “I will be a professor soon, I will pay you back then” referring one of his uncles working as a professor at other university. He extorted some 60 million won from one of his acquaintances saying, “I can make you a professor”.

He borrowed some 100 million won from a bank using his relatives` houses as collateral.

Finally, his wife and a six year-old daughter left him last year.

He also lost his job at the college last December due to his bad reputation with financial problems.

Ever since, he has been pressed by creditors and conceived a criminal plan because he could not pay for his monthly rent.

Kim confessed to the police, “I do not have any intention to really put poisons to the facility at all. I might have lost my mind due to my money problem”

podragon@donga.com