Open Decision Ledger · Economic crime
Fraud in obtaining a loan by inflating the value of collateral, and whether the amount that could have been lent on the collateral's actual value should be deducted from the amount of gain
Translated from the Korean original. Read the Korean
Supreme Court, Apr. 3, 2019, 2018Do19772 (judgment)
No holding summary · checked against points at issue. The official text publishes no summary of the holding for this decision. The quotation and factors in this record are copied verbatim from the points at issue; the evidence for each axis is taken from the points at issue, the order and the reasons.
Case name: 특정경제범죄가중처벌등에관한법률위반(사기)·부동산실권리자명의등기에관한법률위반
Official text on the National Law Information Center
Question
Where a borrower obtains a loan from a financial institution by falsely inflating the value of the property to be provided as collateral, does the offense of fraud arise, and must the amount that could have been lent against the actual value of the collateral be deducted from the amount of gain?
Holding
Insofar as the loan was obtained by an act of deception, the offense of fraud is established, and the loanable amount based on the actual value is not deducted from the amount of gain. The Supreme Court held that the entire loan amount received by submitting a sale and purchase agreement with an inflated sale price constitutes the amount of gain.
Points at issue, verbatim
담보로 제공할 목적물의 가액을 허위로 부풀려 금융기관으로부터 대출을 받은 경우, 사기죄가 성립하는지 여부(적극)
Unofficial English translation
Whether the offense of fraud is established where a person, by falsely inflating the value of the property to be provided as collateral, receives a loan from a financial institution (affirmative)
Disposition
Partly reversed and remanded Stated in the decision
원심판결 중 피고인에 대한 부분을 파기하고, 이 부분 사건을 서울고등법원에 환송한다.
Unofficial English translation
The judgment of the court below is reversed insofar as it pertains to the defendant, and this part of the case is remanded to the Seoul High Court.
Form of the test
Existing test applied Read from the decision
지급받은 대출금 전부가 사기죄의 이득액에 해당한다.
Unofficial English translation
The entire loan amount received corresponds to the amount of gain from the offense of fraud.
Factors
- 담보로 제공할 목적물의 가액을 허위로 부풀려
- 금융기관으로부터 대출을 받은 경우
- 사기죄의 이득액에서 담보물의 실제 가액을 전제로 한 대출가능금액을 공제하여야 하는지 여부(소극)
Unofficial English translation
• by falsely inflating the value of the property to be provided as collateral,
• where a loan is received from a financial institution,
• whether, from the amount of gain from the offense of fraud, the amount that could have been loaned on the premise of the actual value of the collateral must be deducted (negative)
Relation to precedent
Follows earlier decisions Stated in the decision
대법원 2007. 9. 6. 선고 2007도5497 판결, 대법원 2017. 12. 22. 선고 2017도12649 판결
Unofficial English translation
Supreme Court Decision 2007Do5497 decided September 6, 2007, Supreme Court Decision 2017Do12649 decided December 22, 2017
Decisions referred to
대법원 2007. 9. 6. 선고 2007도5497 판결, 대법원 2017. 12. 22. 선고 2017도12649 판결(공2018상, 388)
Burden of proof
Not addressed Not in the decision
Open question and revisit condition
Even where the appraised value is lower than the inflated sale price and the loan is executed on the basis of the appraised value, to what extent is causation between the false sale price and the disbursement of the loan required?
This reading will be re-examined if there is a Supreme Court decision accepting the deduction of collateral value in computing the amount of gain under the offense of fraud, or if the provision on the amount of gain in the Act on the Aggravated Punishment, etc. of Specific Economic Crimes is amended.
Cross-family AI independent reading & axis check
6 of 8 axes matched GPT-6 Astra (OpenAI, codex CLI) · 2026-10-16
When compared with an independent reading by another AI model (GPT-6 Astra), which read only the original text without seeing the initial reading, 6 of the 8 axes matched, and the readings diverged on Axis 4 (Form of the test) and Axis 8 (Open question and revisit condition).
Axis 4 (Form of the test): Primary “Existing test applied” vs Independent “Elements stated”
Because the original text addresses both the establishment of the offense of fraud in loans with inflated collateral value and the calculation of the amount of gain, it may be read either as an application to a specific type of loan or as a statement of general requirements for establishment and calculation.
담보로 제공할 목적물의 가액을 허위로 부풀려 금융기관으로부터 대출을 받은 경우, 사기죄가 성립하는지 여부(적극)Axis 8 (Open question and revisit condition): Primary “Even where the appraised value is lower than the inflated sale price and the loan is executed on the basis of the appraised value, to what extent is causation between the false sale price and the disbursement of the loan required?” vs Independent “If the financial institution extended the loan while knowing that the inflated value was false, how should causation between the deception and the loan be determined?”
The initial reading asks about causation where the loan is made on the basis of a lower appraised value, while the independent reading asks about causation where the financial institution knows of the falsity and still extends the loan.
담보로 제공할 목적물의 가액을 허위로 부풀려 금융기관으로부터 대출을 받은 경우, 사기죄가 성립하는지 여부(적극)Raw responses and comparison record: Protocol · Blind readings (JSONL) · Axis comparison (JSONL) · SHA-256 (JSON)
Lower-court contrast & scope of application
Lower-court reading vs. Supreme Court holding
Lower-court context: The court below recognized as the amount of gain only the remainder after deducting, from the total loan amount, the sum that could have been loaned had the actual sale and purchase agreement been submitted, and thus found the defendant not guilty on the ground of the violation of the Act on the Aggravated Punishment, etc. of Specific Economic Crimes (fraud) and found the defendant guilty only of fraud.
Supreme Court standard: The Supreme Court held that, since the sale price in the sale and purchase agreement serves as the standard for calculating the loanable amount, submission of an agreement inflating that price is an act of deception and the entire loan amount disbursed constitutes the amount of gain, and therefore found that the court below had misapprehended legal principles in its calculation of the amount of gain. Because the part on which the defendant was found not guilty on the ground stands in the relation of a single offense or of concurrent offenses with the part on which the defendant was found guilty, the Supreme Court reversed the entire portion concerning the defendant and remanded the case.
Distinguishing conditions
- Where the inflated value is not a matter serving as the standard for the financial institution's calculation of the loanable amount, so that the relevance between the act of deception and the loan is not recognized
- Where it emerges that the financial institution knew of the false entries yet decided to extend the loan under separate, independent criteria
- Loan cases where the falsity at issue concerns matters other than the value of the collateral, such as repayment capacity or the purpose of the funds
Record verification notes
x
From the official text
Points at issue
담보로 제공할 목적물의 가액을 허위로 부풀려 금융기관으로부터 대출을 받은 경우, 사기죄가 성립하는지 여부(적극) 및 이때 사기죄의 이득액에서 담보물의 실제 가액을 전제로 한 대출가능금액을 공제하여야 하는지 여부(소극)
Unofficial English translation
Whether the offense of fraud is established where a person, by falsely inflating the value of the property to be provided as collateral, receives a loan from a financial institution (affirmative), and whether, in such case, the amount that could have been loaned on the premise of the actual value of the collateral must be deducted from the amount of gain from the offense of fraud (negative)
Summary of the holding
The official text publishes no summary of the holding for this decision. The quotation and factors in this record are copied verbatim from the points at issue; the evidence for each axis is taken from the points at issue, the order and the reasons.
Order
원심판결 중 피고인에 대한 부분을 파기하고, 이 부분 사건을 서울고등법원에 환송한다.
Unofficial English translation
The judgment of the court below is reversed insofar as it pertains to the defendant, and this part of the case is remanded to the Seoul High Court.
Provisions referred to
형법 제347조
Read 2026-10-16 · Cross-read 2026-10-16. All quotes matched against the official text. The Chinese-character placeholders the court used for anonymised parties are given in their Korean readings, and parenthetical Chinese-character glosses are omitted.
Every entry is published only after all quotes have been matched character by character against the official text, and audited by an independent second reading from a different model family across all eight axes. Both agreed axes and text-grounded interpretive divergences are recorded openly. The ledger is a research record, not an assessment of the court or advice on any matter.
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