Two foreign nationals were sentenced to prison for stealing five vehicles from a used-car lot in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, and moving them to an export packing site in Incheon, legal sources said Monday.
The Suwon District Court sentenced a Uzbek man in his 40s to 10 months in prison and a Kazakh man in his 20s to one year in prison on charges including aggravated theft. The Kazakh man was also convicted of driving without a license.
The two were accused of stealing five vehicles, including Hyundai Avante and Grandeur sedans, from an open lot in Hwaseong at around 9:18 p.m. on Dec. 27.
The cars, which were for sale and had their front and rear license plates removed, were driven away and loaded onto a trailer, according to the court.
Investigators found that the defendants conspired with an unidentified foreign national and delivered the stolen vehicles to a container packing site for export vehicles in Incheon.
The two defendants each received 750,000 won ($510) from the unidentified accomplice for their role in the theft.
During the trial, they denied intent to steal, claiming they had only moved the cars after believing the accomplice’s claim that he had purchased them.
The court rejected the argument, saying the defendants were aware that the transaction was not legitimate. It cited the fact that they knew the accomplice was staying in Korea illegally and could not speak Korean properly, and that the payment was unusually high given the little time and difficulty required to move cars.
“The defendants stole five vehicles owned by the victim late at night,” Judge Cho Hyun-kwon said. “The method of the crime was bold, the amount of damage was considerable, and the damage has not been properly recovered.”
The court said, however, that there was no clear evidence that the defendants led the theft on equal footing with the unidentified accomplice or shared equally in the proceeds.
hnpark@heraldcorp.com
