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| Yang Jin-ho, CEO of Hankook Mirae Technology, assaults an ex-employee in the face several times in this video released by News Tapa, Tuesday. The video was taken in April 2015 in the office of WeDisk, an online file-sharing site Yang owns in Bundang, Gyeonggi Province. / Screen capture from News Tapa |
By Jung Hae-myoung
The police have launched an investigation into Yang Jin-ho, CEO of Hankook Mirae Technology, for physically and verbally assaulting a former employee of one of his companies, according to the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency.
The abuse became known through a video clip disclosed on Tuesday by News Tapa, a news outlet run by the Korea Center for Investigative Journalism.
In the video taken in April 2015, Yang slaps a former staffer's head several times and curses the man in front of other workers in the office of WeDisk, an online file-sharing site Yang owns. He orders the man to kneel down in apology, but hits him because he thought the apology was not sincere enough. Yang assaulted the man because the worker left comments critical of him on a bulletin board of the company's website after he left the firm.
Yang ordered other workers to film the assault "as a souvenir," according to the tipster who offered the footage to News Tapa.
Another video released Wednesday further showed Yang's unreasonable behavior.
At a workshop in 2016, Yang ordered employees to kill chickens with a crossbow and a Japanese sword to make chicken soup for dinner. In the video, he picks two workers and forces them to kill a chicken with the sword.
More witnesses testified that Yang fired a worker for washing lettuce too slowly at a workshop, forced workers to dye their hair specific colors, and forbade workers from going to the bathroom while drinking.
A former employee at WeDisk said Yang enjoyed watching his employees suffer. "He was like an emperor within the company. His company was his kingdom," he said, adding the employees did not resist out of fear of losing their jobs.
As the videos caused a huge stir, the police began to contact former workers and alleged victims.
Yang has already been under police investigation for a separate case of online distribution of pornography and illegally taken sexual videos.
Hankook Mirae Technology is widely known for manufacturing Method-2, a robot that walks upright. Yang is the de facto owner of WeDisk and Filenori, two of the nation's leading online data storage businesses here.
The police searched his home and office in September as WeDisk allegedly let the distribution of such illegal videos on the platform. They also questioned Yang recently over the allegation.
