Suwon District Prosecutors' Office Urgently Arrests Investigator on Charges of Leaking Ssangbangwool Investigation Data

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[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyung-min] The prosecution has urgently arrested an investigator from the investigation team and an executive of Ssangbangwool Group on charges of leaking investigation secrets related to Ssangbangwool Group.

According to the prosecution on the 5th, the Criminal Division 1 of Suwon District Prosecutors' Office (Chief Prosecutor Son Jin-wook) urgently arrested investigator A from the Criminal Division 6 of the same office (Chief Prosecutor Kim Young-nam), who is investigating the flow of funds of Ssangbangwool Group, the day before.

He is suspected of leaking investigation secrets to Ssangbangwool Group executive B. B, who is known to be a former prosecution investigator, was also urgently arrested by the prosecution on the same day on suspicion of receiving investigation secrets.

The Criminal Division 1 confirmed circumstances that investigation materials related to Ssangbangwool were recently leaked externally and is conducting an internal inspection against the Criminal Division 6. On the same day, Criminal Division 1 also conducted a search and seizure of the Criminal Division 6 office. On the 2nd, investigators were sent to Ssangbangwool headquarters in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, to secure related materials to verify whether Ssangbangwool Group was involved in leaking investigation secrets.

The number of investigators suspected of leaking investigation secrets has thus become two. Besides the investigator urgently arrested on this day, another investigator from Criminal Division 6 suspected of leaking investigation secrets has already been transferred to a non-investigation department. Criminal Division 6 is investigating the suspicious flow of funds of Ssangbangwool, having received related data from the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), including the process of selling convertible bonds (CB) worth 4.5 billion won issued by Ssangbangwool in 2020.

Meanwhile, separately from Criminal Division 6, the Public Investigation Division of Suwon District Prosecutors' Office (Chief Prosecutor Jeong Won-du) is investigating allegations of proxy payment of attorney fees for Lee Jae-myung, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea. The proxy payment allegations involve claims that large attorney fees were paid on behalf of Lee by Ssangbangwool Group’s convertible bonds and other means to lawyers handling Lee’s public election law violation case in 2018 while he was governor of Gyeonggi Province. The prosecution is investigating with the possibility in mind that this case and the suspicious flow of funds of Ssangbangwool may be connected.

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