New Employees With an Annual Salary of 1 Trillion Won - Chapter 123

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 123. Internal Crackdown (2)

The Daehyeon Electronics small device factory, now renamed Nexcon.

A freight truck entered through the main gate for parts delivery, and a security guard stopped the vehicle.

“Please fill out the entry log.”

“The security changed? Before, the guard would fill out the log himself and open the gate, but since you’re new, you’re being too strict.”

“I haven’t memorized all the faces yet. Once I see you more often, I’ll handle things smoothly too.”

“At least you’re reasonable. Next time, just open the gate when you see the license plate. Got it?”

“I’ll remember that.”

The guard smiled warmly as he let the vehicle inside.

He stood at attention and even saluted, waiting until the vehicle completely disappeared into the scrap yard.

“Beep! Scrap transport vehicle entering.”

“Confirmed!”

The guard putting down the radio was actually Representative Park Dae-hyeok.

Not only had he infiltrated as security with Tiger Fund’s help.

He had also used his own judgment to get employees hired in various positions through a service provider contracted with Nexcon.

The youngest employee among them was assigned to scrap yard duties.

That employee was equipped with not only a camera but also a recording device.

“What are you doing! Open the gate!”

After about 30 minutes, the scrap transport truck came to the main gate loaded with cargo.

Park Dae-hyeok put on his warm smile again and saluted the driver while opening the gate.

“Thank you for your hard work!”

“Just open it quickly. If I complain to my superior, you’ll be fired immediately.”

“I’ll be careful!”

“I’m letting it slide since it’s your first day, but do better from now on.”

“Next time I’ll open the gate in advance when I see the vehicle from 100 meters away.”

“You have a good attitude. See you around.”

As the transport truck left, music began playing from the factory.

It was the sound signaling break time, and Park Dae-hyeok naturally moved to the smoking area.

A Redline employee was already in the corner of the smoking area, wearing grimy clothes with a cigarette in his mouth.

“Did you confirm anything?”

“They were manipulating the scrap weight. The actual weight was 20 tons, but after manipulating the scale several times, the weight was reduced to 10 tons.”

“What’s the price per ton?”

“It varies by scrap type. The scrap removed this time was about 100,000 won per ton.”

“So they made 1 million won by tampering with the scale a few times.”

They had skimmed off about 10 tons of scrap.

Since the scrap transport truck comes about 3 times a week.

Over 12 million won per month could be seen as going into the executives’ pockets.

“It wasn’t their first or second time doing this.”

“If they’ve been doing this for several years, the corruption amount would exceed hundreds of millions. Did you check the scrap company?”

“It was Gwangjin Scrap in Gyeonggi Province.”

“We’ll need to investigate them too.”

The music played again.

People in the smoking area returned to the work floor, and Park Dae-hyeok and the employee also returned to their positions.

And during the next break time.

This time, an employee in charge of pallet loading and unloading was waiting for Park Dae-hyeok in the corner of the smoking area.

“The pallet condition is completely terrible. Most pallets break with just a little touch, and the newly incoming pallets are also lowest grade.”

“But they’re buying them at premium pallet prices, right?”

“According to the materials, yes. And I found one more suspicious point.”

“What is it?”

The employee in charge of pallets lowered his voice even more.

Worried someone might overhear, he pretended to light a cigarette while quietly whispering.

“The president and the pallet company representative seem to be related.”

“Are you sure?”

“I heard it from the forklift operator.”

“They’re really thorough in their corruption. Dig deeper. If you get a chance to see the account books, make sure to photograph them.”

The operation was easier than expected.

They weren’t even trying to hide it properly, and evidence was scattered everywhere.

Park Dae-hyeok thought the operation might end sooner than anticipated.

***

I called the General Manager after a long time.

The situation of the General Manager and Division Manager enduring the fierce sandstorms of the Middle East wasn’t as bad as expected.

“How are you doing?”

[What’s the occasion, Branch Manager? You never call to check on us. Things here are almost finished. We just need to transfer the mining rights and we’re done.]

“Then is the Division Manager returning to Hong Kong?”

[Of course. No matter how late, he’ll return to Hong Kong by the end of this month.]

That was fortunate.

If the Division Manager returned to Hong Kong, I wouldn’t need to go to Hong Kong myself.

“I want to acquire a battery company in Hong Kong.”

[Battery? You were interested in that field too? But you want acquisition, not investment?]

“For now, equity investment would be fine, but within 1-2 years we need to proceed with acquiring the company itself.”

[What’s the company name?]

“ATL. It’s a new battery company that hasn’t been around long, and it’s currently supplying lithium-ion batteries to Apple.”

It was a company essential for my plan.

It would handle one axis of the structure I designed, and acquiring ATL would significantly shorten the completion time.

[Is there a specific reason you must acquire it?]

“As I mentioned before, the era of small devices is coming. For that, batteries become very important. If we secure the battery market now, enormous profits will roll in later.”

[What’s ATL’s corporate value?]

“It’s not expensive yet. Even adding up the entire market capitalization, it doesn’t exceed 100 million dollars.”

Just 100 million dollars.

I was confident that by acquiring ATL for that amount, we could recover hundreds or thousands of times more within 20 years.

[Acquiring a 100 million dollar company isn’t difficult, but can you handle it? I’m worried you’re trying to pursue too many businesses simultaneously.]

“It’s fully possible. Semiconductors, small device factories, and batteries – they’re all moving in the same direction, so handling them isn’t difficult.”

[Understood. Once the Division Manager returns to Hong Kong, we’ll proceed with ATL negotiations immediately. And I’ll instruct the Asia Branch to start making contact from today.]

Of course, acquiring ATL alone wouldn’t end everything.

More preparations were needed to dominate the battery market, but there was still plenty of time to proceed step by step.

“I’m sorry to make such requests when you’re busy with Middle East affairs.”

[No need to apologize. I’m only worried about you personally, not about your achievements at all.]

“Thank you for trusting me.”

[Once the Middle East situation is settled, I’ll come straight to Korea, so let’s discuss the details then.]

I couldn’t keep the busy General Manager on the line any longer.

I immediately hung up the phone handset.

And beside me, an employee had been standing at attention, seemingly having something to report.

“What is it?”

“Someone from a security company called Redline is here.”

“Tell them to come in.”

It was Representative Park Dae-hyeok.

He entered the office with wet hair flowing as if he had just been to a bathhouse.

“Branch Manager, I’ll give you an interim report.”

“You must have secured enough evidence to give an interim report already.”

“I haven’t found the double books yet, but I’ve identified the corruption patterns.”

Park Dae-hyeok pulled out several photos from his jacket and laid them out.

Scrap yards, parts warehouses, offsite warehouses. These were photos taken at various sites, and dozens of documents were spread out alongside them.

“What are all these photos?”

“They were committing corruption through a wide variety of methods. They were embezzling over 10 million won monthly by manipulating scrap metal weights, and they even set up a pallet company using relatives to pocket kickbacks.”

The photos made it clear.

A scale that had shown 20 tons instantly changed to 10 tons, with only a 1-second gap between the two photos.

“Manipulating the scale weight wouldn’t be too difficult, I suppose.”

“They were reducing the weight by using a crane to pull up the bags containing scrap metal.”

“But what are these parts factory photos about?”

“They were also manipulating parts quantities to receive kickbacks. According to the report from the staff member in charge of inventory inspection, while the books showed 2,000 screws should have come in, only 500 screws actually arrived.”

It was quite an ingenious scheme.

I couldn’t understand why they used such brilliant minds for pocketing kickbacks.

These were methods that people unfamiliar with the field could never imagine, and evidence that would have been difficult to find if Redline employees hadn’t been deployed directly to the sites.

“What are the rest of these documents?”

“Materials that can prove the embezzlement. They include everything from genealogy records showing the pallet company representative is the president’s cousin to the actual weights when scrap from Nexcon was reweighed at the scrap yard.”

The work was thorough beyond being just clean.

Redline had collected solid and diverse materials in just a few days.

“How did you obtain the genealogy records?”

“We went directly to the president’s family ancestral burial ground. The genealogy was carved on a stone monument erected at the entrance, and through that content we were able to confirm the family relationship.”

“Are there any other reports?”

“We also identified the company factions.”

Not only evidence collection, but they had also grasped the internal company situation.

Representative Park Dae-hyeok pulled out Nexcon’s organizational chart and drew circles and X marks on it.

“The president and department heads marked with circles are one faction. We determined that they’re the ones leading the embezzlement.”

“Then the department heads marked with X’s have nothing to do with the embezzlement?”

“They might not know about it, or perhaps they know but pretend not to. What’s certain is that the relationship between the two factions doesn’t look good.”

Is this the capability of someone from the National Intelligence Service?

Not only evidence collection, but they had completed friend-or-foe identification as well.

“If we make the department heads marked with X’s our allies, things should proceed smoothly.”

“The Quality Team and Technology Team heads were being ostracized, perhaps due to the nature of their departments. And just looking at their company dinner venues, those two teams seem to have little connection to the embezzlement.”

“I see they even discriminated in company dinner venues.”

“The Materials Team and Production Team had company dinners with beef, but the Quality Team and Technology Team held their dinners with pork belly.”

Company dinner expenses are typically paid with the corporate card anyway.

Yet having different dinner venues meant they increased the limits for teams belonging to the president’s faction.

Conversely, teams not belonging to the faction were forced to hold dinners at cheaper places.

“This evidence is sufficient. I’ll pay you a total of 30 million won – the 20 million success fee plus an early completion bonus.”

“Really? Thank you. If it’s work like this, please contact me anytime.”

“Rather than that, wouldn’t you consider receiving proper support from Tiger Fund?”

The capability verification was complete with this operation.

Representative Park Dae-hyeok was definitely a useful person, and the company called Redline had outstanding skills.

“By support, do you mean sponsorship?”

“You can think of it as investment, or you can think of it as support. From now on, don’t take on other work and only handle Tiger Fund-related matters.”

“Just doing that alone would make it difficult to cover company operating funds.”

Does he know how much I’m planning to offer when he says this?

I was planning to provide support in an amount that would never leave them short of operating funds, no matter how extravagantly they spent.

“Tiger Fund will support the entire operating fund. And we’ll provide separate success fees depending on the operation.”

“You mean the entire operating fund? Operating costs alone exceed 100 million won per year. We have to provide minimum salaries for employees and purchase equipment, so it costs a lot of money.”

“Even if operating costs are 200 million instead of 100 million, we’ll provide full support. How about reinforcing your staff as well? The current personnel are sufficient for information gathering and analysis, but you seem to need additional staff for accounting and financial work.”

I planned to continue acquiring companies in the future.

That would require an organization for internal audits, and I wanted to make Redline an unofficial internal audit company.

“If operating funds are sufficient, we can hire as many additional people as needed.”

“National Tax Service personnel or police personnel would be good.”

“Those types of personnel have very expensive labor costs.”

“Don’t worry about money. Salaries will never be delayed. And please hire additional staff for data analysis as well. 200 million won will be deposited today. It’s money that came through clean channels, so don’t worry.”

Information analysis was essential for internal audits.

The current personnel clearly had limitations, and there was a need to hire professional staff in large numbers.

And while they’re only handling Tiger Fund internal audits now, I even had thoughts of eventually growing them into a corporate audit specialist company.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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