Bonn used to be the capital of West Germany during the Cold War. When that was over, however, Berlin got reassigned as capital and Bonn went back to being a mostly ordinary small town.
They never quite got over the demotion though and the city made numerous attempts at staying internationally relevant. One project was to become a UN base of operations for Germany. Apparently for that, it's a requirement that your build an oversized hotel and conference venue.
The city had trouble finding investors for the project, but eventually a korean company - "SMI Hyundai" stepped forward.
If you want to believe the official records, then apparently due diligence went out the window at the mention of the name "Hyundai". City officials assumed that they were somehow affiliated with the automaker and were quick to trust them with city-backed loans in the millions.
It turned out they were scammers and not even remotely capable of contributing to the project. In the end, the city had damage of several 100 million euros.
The company had never had any relation to the automaker either. It just "happened" to have the term "Hyundai" in its name...
FYI: I tried, and the only Google result is this exact HN post.