ABC News: Luke Rosen
)Prosecutors have dropped all charges against a Korean national accused of defrauding an elderly Canberra woman out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Byung Uk Cho was arrested at Sydney Airport in October last year while attempting to board a flight to South Korea.
He was charged with 27 counts of fraud in the ACT Magistrates Court and pleaded not guilty.
The 27-year-old had been under investigation since March 2020 over a string of allegedly suspicious transactions from an 89-year-old woman's bank account.
Mr Cho was employed by an IT business, and went to the woman's home in Yarralumla in Canberra's south to fix her computer.
More than $360,000 allegedly began to leak from the woman's account shortly afterward.
Mr Cho had miscommunication with woman, lawyer says
In a previous bail hearing, the court heard Mr Cho had returned the full amount of money by bank cheque to police.
His lawyer Peter Berg claimed Mr Cho had struck up a friendship with the woman and with her permission was helping her to invest in real estate in South Korea.
Mr Berg said his client's English was "weak", resulting in miscommunication with the alleged victim.
Prosecutors told the court they would offer no evidence against Mr Cho and Magistrate Louise Taylor dismissed the charges.
It was not clear why prosecutors chose not to continue the case.
The court previously heard Mr Cho's working holiday visa had expired and he could be deported.
Mr Berg also said his client had been attempting to return to South Korea to complete his compulsory military service when he was arrested.
