UPDATED: Lotte Duty Free Senior Executive Director Lee Hong-kyun is reported today to be succeeding Lee Won-joon (inset) as the CEO of Lotte Duty Free.

South Korea’s two leading English language newspapers both originally carried the story that long-time Lotte employee Lee Hong-Kyun has effectively been appointed to succeed Lee Won-joon, who in turn has been promoted to the prestige position of Lotte Department Store President.

Lee Won-joon now takes over from Shin Heon who offered his resignation after allegations that he had obtained monies under false pretences from some of Lotte’s suppliers in the past.

The aforementioned appointments are expected to be ratified at a temporary shareholders’ meeting shortly. Lee Won-joon is said to have impressed his superiors with the expansion of Lotte Duty Free into Indonesia and Guam in particular since he took over the CEO role in 2012.

His successor Lee Hong-kyun is a senior executive director at Lotte Duty Free with 32 years experience at the company in the areas of marketing and sales.

[When TRBusiness first ran this story on April 24 we also contacted both individual staff writers directly at the Korea Joongang Daily and The Korea Times in Seoul to double check its accuracy, since the Korean language only press statement was not widely circulated. We thank them for forwarding the statement].