Prosecutors: "Investigation into Money Envelopes at Democratic Party Convention Involves No Political Consideration"

On the 18th, the prosecution investigating the 'money envelope distribution' allegations that occurred at the 2021 Democratic Party of Korea National Convention stated that "there can be no political considerations in the investigation."

Prosecutors [Image source=Yonhap News]

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, which is handling the case, issued a statement on the same day emphasizing, "The prosecution initiated the investigation into the 'Democratic Party National Convention bribery' case based on evidence discovered during the investigations of Representative No Woong-rae and former Deputy Secretary-General Lee Jeong-geun."

The Central District Prosecutors' Office responded to claims from some opposition circles that "the prosecution leaked the recorded files to the media," stating, "Although the recorded files reported in the media were not provided by the prosecution, there are false claims suggesting they were leaked by the prosecution." They added, "We will conduct a swift and fair investigation and request the Democratic Party to actively cooperate in the investigation to ascertain the facts of the matter."

Since September of last year, the Anti-Corruption Investigation Division 2 (Chief Prosecutor Kim Young-chul) of the Central District Prosecutors' Office, which has been investigating Lee's alleged receipt of bribes amounting to around 1 billion won, secured approximately 30,000 voice recordings made by Lee since around 2016 during the investigation process. While analyzing Lee's recordings, the prosecution detected clues related to the distribution of money envelopes at the National Convention.

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