Bay Area EV tech investment scammer sentenced to prison

(KRON) — A San Jose man was sentenced to prison on Thursday after he scammed victims who believed that they were investing in electric vehicle tech companies, prosecutors said.

Joon Woo Kim, 58, was sentenced by a federal judge to serve 33 months in prison.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Kim orchestrated two fraud schemes. In one, he mislead victims to contribute millions of dollars into an investment fund, M5 Doctors Fund, that Kim founded in San Francisco. Investors believed that their money would be invested in electric vehicle companies, including Tesla.

In reality, Kim funneled the money into his own private company, CKR Enterprise, prosecutors said.

In the second scheme, he obtained multi-million dollar business loans by lying to a bank. Earlier this year, Kim pleaded guilty to wire fraud and making false statements to a bank.

The first fraud scheme occurred from June 2015 through March 2022 and involved creating and running an investment fund that Kim named M5 Doctors Fund, investigators said. Kim admitted in his plea agreement that he ran the M5 Doctors Fund with the intent to deceive investors.

“Kim transferred nearly all the millions invested by investors in the M5 Doctors Fund into a failing private company called CKR Enterprise, Inc. CKR was a wholesale food distribution company operated by Kim and his wife and owned by them, among others. Kim defrauded investors out of $4,690,000 due to his transfer of the M5 Doctors Fund assets to CKR,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office wrote.

Prosecutors said Kim gained the trust of his investors due to his impressive profile, which included multiple Ivy League university degrees and extensive investment experience.

Kim engaged in a second fraud scheme in which he defrauded Hanmi Bank when he lied on his applications for two loans for CKR, a $1.3 million line of credit and a $3.2 million business loan.

U.S. District Judge James Donato ordered Kim to pay more than $4.7 million in restitution to his victims.  The judge also ordered Kim to make presentations in front of university MBA classes to “inform students about the consequences of engaging in fraudulent business practices and behaviors,” prosecutors wrote.

Kim was ordered to surrender into custody on September 3.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRON4.