Virginia man convicted of stealing $2.5 million from community investors

A federal jury in Alexandria, Virginia, convicted Jihoon Park, 52, of Chantilly, Virginia, on charges stemming from a scheme that victimized individuals and defrauded a U.S. Bankruptcy Court, the Justice Department said.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Park persuaded members of his community to let him invest their money and grow their assets. He drew on personal relationships and a former affiliation with a large national financial institution to gain the victims’ trust, promising safe investments with high returns, according to the Justice Department. Instead, prosecutors said, Park transferred more than $2.5 million from multiple victims to himself, using the money to purchase a house and cryptocurrency.

When one victim sued him, Park transferred assets to his wife and concealed millions of dollars in cryptocurrency before filing for bankruptcy, according to court documents. During the bankruptcy proceedings, he falsely claimed he had only 34 cents in financial assets and no cryptocurrency in an effort to avoid repaying his victim creditors, prosecutors said.

“Jihoon Park claimed he would invest his community members’ life savings, retirement, and money and promised a high-yield return. Instead, he stole the millions of dollars entrusted to him to enrich himself,” Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said in a statement. “Unsuspecting families and individuals suffered devastating financial crises because of Park’s crimes. The Criminal Division’s White Collar Section is using every available resource to stop criminals from destroying people’s livelihoods and retirements.”

Park was convicted of three counts of wire fraud and two counts of bankruptcy fraud, according to the Justice Department. He is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 10, 2026, and faces maximum penalties of 20 years in prison on the wire fraud counts and five years on the bankruptcy fraud counts. A federal district court judge will determine his sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

The FBI’s Washington Field Office is investigating the case, the Justice Department said. Trial Attorney Timothy J. Coley of the Criminal Division’s White Collar and Corporate Enforcement Section and Trial Attorney Zachary H. Ray of the National Fraud Enforcement Division’s Health Care Fraud Section are prosecuting the case, with substantial assistance from Assistant U.S. Attorneys Russell L. Carlberg and Jack Morgan of the Eastern District of Virginia.