Jang Jin-ho, former chairman of Jinro Group, a now-defunct South Korean business conglomerate, has died in Beijing at age 63.
Jang was pronounced dead Friday at a hospital in Beijing after an apparent heart attack, according to an official at the South Korean Embassy here.
Family members of Jang arrived in Beijing and were discussing funeral arrangements, the official said on the condition of anonymity.
Jinro, which had a distilled liquor maker under its flagship subsidiary, was one of the business conglomerates that collapsed under mounting debts in 1997, when the Asian financial turmoil hit South Korea.
In 2004, Jang was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison on charges of embezzlement and accounting frauds, but the sentence was suspended for five years.
Jang was believed to have been living in Cambodia and China since then. (Yonhap)
