An Irvine man was sentenced to two years in federal prison for accepting millions in bribes from a South Korean company hoping to win a lucrative contract from General Motors.
In addition to the prison time, Hyoung Nam So, a 49-year-old former GM manager who also went by Brian So, was ordered to repay $250,000 after he was convicted of conspiracy to commit bribery in November, the United States Department of Justice said in a news release.
So, who “oversaw the supply of parts used to build interiors for GM automobiles in North America,” in 2015 promised a contract to Wookyung MIT, a South Korean company, despite the fact that the contract was supposed to be awarded through a competitive bidding process.
So and the owner of Wookyung MIT, who was prosecuted in South Korea for the scheme, agreed that So would be paid $5 million in cash for giving the contract to Wookyung MIT.
Later that year, the Wookyung MIT owner sent $1 million in cash to L.A. through money brokers, and that cash was taken to Troy, Michigan, where So was living at the time. The business owner flew to Michigan to personally deliver the money, prosecutors said.
By this point, So knew that Wookyung MIT was not the lowest bidder for the project, so he provided the company information “that would allow it to revise its bid,” prosecutors said. By December 2015, So was recommending Wookyung MIT be awarded the contract, and GM did so.
However, Wookyung MIT was not aware they had won the contract. In fact, until the the final $2.45 million in cash was handed over at a Detroit restaurant — prosecutors say he only received $3.45 million, not $5 million, for the scheme — So kept that information to himself, only advising the business owner that the contract bid was accepted the day after that dinner in Detroit.
Homeland Security Investigations seized almost $3.2 million from So’s private vault in Los Altos that was believed to be part of the bribery scheme, and that cash has been returned to officials in South Korea.
“Corporate executives must play by the same rules as the rest of us,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said in the release. “By demanding millions of dollars in bribes to award contracts, this defendant corrupted the system and thumbed his nose at fair and honest business practices. Now, this defendant will do federal prison time and see firsthand that no person is above the law.”