Prosecutors Detect Billions-Won 'Money Transactions' Between Kim Man-bae and Daily Newspaper Executives

Kim Man-bae, the major shareholder of Hwacheon Daeyu Asset Management, is entering the courtroom at the Seoul Central District Court to attend the trial related to the lobbying and preferential treatment allegations in the Daejang-dong development project. Photo by Heo Young-han younghan@

[Asia Economy Reporter Heo Kyung-jun] It has been reported that the prosecution has detected circumstances in which Kim Man-bae, the major shareholder of Hwacheon Daeyu Asset Management, and executives of major media outlets exchanged funds worth several hundred million won.

According to the legal community on the 6th, the Anti-Corruption Investigation Division 1 of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office (Chief Prosecutor Eom Hee-jun) has identified signs that Kim engaged in large-scale financial transactions with fellow journalists between 2019 and 2021 during the process of tracking the flow of funds, and is currently verifying the nature of these transactions.

The prosecution is known to have confirmed that part of the 238.6 billion won in dividends Kim received during the 2019 Daejang-dong project flowed to journalists while tracing the flow of these funds.

In 2019, Kim reportedly received money from lawyer Nam Wook under the pretext of "a fellow reporter needing a loan to buy a house," and four checks worth 150 million won each were delivered to executive A of a major daily newspaper.

Additionally, executives B and C of another daily newspaper are said to have received 100 million won in 2020 and 90 million won in 2019, respectively, through Kim.

The circumstances of financial transactions between Kim and journalists also appear multiple times in the so-called "Jung Young-hak recordings" submitted to the prosecution by Jung Young-hak.

Since the prosecution discovered signs that large sums of money flowed to media executives during the fund tracking process, they plan to verify the nature and specific details of these financial transactions.

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