Seongnam District Chief Park Eun-jeong Assigned to Suwon District Prosecutors' Office Criminal Division 6 for 'Seongnam FC Investigation Cover-up' Allegation Case

Eunjeong Park, Chief Prosecutor of Seongnam Branch.

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Seok-jin, Legal Affairs Specialist] The case in which Park Eun-jung, head of the Seongnam District Prosecutors' Office, was accused of covering up the investigation into the 'Seongnam FC sponsorship fund' allegations has been assigned to the Criminal Division 6 of the Suwon District Prosecutors' Office. This division is responsible for investigating public officials, corporate, and violent crime cases.

According to the legal community on the 18th, the Suwon District Prosecutors' Office received the case involving Park's accusation from the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office on the 15th and assigned it to the Criminal Division 6 (Chief Prosecutor Kim Byung-moon).

Initially, the case was assigned to the Anti-Corruption and Violent Crime Investigation Division 2 (Chief Prosecutor Jo Ju-yeon) of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, but considering that related investigations were ongoing at the Suwon District Prosecutors' Office and the jurisdictional police station, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office transferred the case to the Suwon District Prosecutors' Office to avoid duplicate investigations.

Earlier, the civic group 'Committee for the Protection of the Livelihood of Ordinary People' filed a complaint with the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office in January, alleging that Park Eun-jung repeatedly rejected Deputy Chief Prosecutor Park Ha-young's recommendations for supplementary or direct investigations related to the Seongnam FC allegations.

On January 25, Deputy Chief Prosecutor Park expressed his intention to resign on the prosecution's internal network, stating, "I am leaving a little earlier than I had thought. I tried to find other ways to continue working, but after much consideration and response, there was no other option."

This led to suspicions within and outside the prosecution that Deputy Chief Prosecutor Park and others had reported the need for reinvestigation or supplementary investigation requests to the police, but Park Eun-jung deliberately delayed decisions by stalling.

Park Eun-jung, who served as the Ministry of Justice's Inspection Officer during former Minister of Justice Choo Mi-ae's tenure and led the disciplinary action against then Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl before being promoted, is considered a representative pro-government prosecutor within the prosecution. For this reason, there was controversy suggesting that Park intentionally blocked the investigation into this case involving the ruling party's presidential candidate, which led to Deputy Chief Prosecutor Park's resignation.

As the suspicions spread, the Seongnam District Prosecutors' Office issued a statement saying, "The Seongnam District Prosecutors' Office is reviewing the investigation records of the Seongnam District Prosecutors' Office and the police investigation records in accordance with laws and principles," and added, "The reports that the office ordered the termination of the investigation or blocked requests for supplementary investigations are not true, so we ask for careful reporting."

However, subsequent media reports and explanations from the Seongnam District Prosecutors' Office revealed that a request for Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) data on Seongnam FC sponsorship groups, which was approved by Deputy Chief Prosecutor Park, was rejected by the Supreme Prosecutors' Office. Later, Park transferred major investigations such as special, public security, and corporate cases handled by the Criminal Division 3, which was reviewing the Seongnam FC case, to Criminal Divisions 1 and 2, leaving Criminal Division 3 to focus on drug and organized crime investigations. Additionally, the FIU data request, previously approved by the deputy chief, was changed to require the head of the office's approval, further fueling controversy.

The 'Seongnam FC allegations' originated in 2018 when the Bareunmirae Party filed a criminal complaint. The allegations claim that Lee Jae-myung, the Democratic Party presidential candidate, who was the club owner during his tenure as mayor of Seongnam, secured large sponsorship funds from companies in exchange for resolving corporate issues.

After the Seongnam Ilhwa football team was transformed into the citizen football club Seongnam FC and Lee became the club owner, six companies located in Seongnam?Doosan Construction (4.2 billion KRW), Naver (3.9 billion KRW), Nonghyup (3.6 billion KRW), Bundang CHA Hospital (3.3 billion KRW), Hyundai Department Store (500 million KRW), and Alphadom City (550 million KRW)?provided a total of 16.05 billion KRW to Seongnam FC from 2015 to 2017 under the name of sponsorship and advertising fees.

In June 2018, the Bareunmirae Party filed a complaint with the prosecution (Seongnam District Prosecutors' Office) accusing Lee of third-party bribery. The allegation was based on the precedent during former President Park Geun-hye's administration, where several large corporations' substantial donations to the Mir and K-Sports Foundations were considered bribes. It was suggested that these companies, which own major facilities in Seongnam, might have supported Seongnam FC indirectly as a means to expect issue resolution through Lee or as a quid pro quo for specific civil complaints such as building permits or land use changes.

There were even suspicions that some of the Seongnam FC sponsorship funds were deposited into related sports organizations in Seongnam and then withdrawn in cash.

After the Bareunmirae Party's complaint, the police (Bundang Police Station), which took over the case, delayed for three years and three months before deciding in September last year not to indict due to insufficient evidence. Following the complainant's objection, the Seongnam District Prosecutors' Office took over the case but did not decide on whether to reinvestigate for several months.

As the controversy grew, Prosecutor General Kim Oh-soo ordered Suwon District Prosecutors' Office Chief Shin Sung-sik to conduct a fact-finding investigation. However, even two weeks after the allegations surfaced, no testimony was taken from the investigation team members, raising suspicions of a 'poor fact-finding investigation.'

Additionally, Prosecutor General Kim stated that the reason for rejecting Deputy Chief Prosecutor Park's FIU data request was that it included information related to other companies under police investigation besides Naver, which was separately reported to the prosecution. However, since the other company-related cases investigated by the police were all transferred to the prosecution following objections from involved parties, there has been no progress in the investigation, including the FIU data request.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.