Prosecutors raided Daishin Securities, KB Securities and Woori Bank on Thursday as part of a probe into the snowballing Lime Asset Management fiasco.

Investigators from the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office executed a search and seizure operation at the headquarters of Daishin Securities and KB Securities in central Seoul and KB Securities’ office in Yeouido in the morning.

Prosecutors had raided Lime Asset Management and Shinhan Investment last week, after the financial authorities requested an investigation into the troubled hedge fund and the banks and securities firms that sold the fund’s products without informing investors properly of the risks. 

The combined individual losses of the fund amounted to nearly 1.7 trillion won ($1.4 billion). A group of investors earlier accused Lime Asset Management as well as its key sales channels of violating the Capital Market Act. 

By Choi Jae-hee (cjh@heraldcorp.com)