'Coin Controversy' Kim Nam-guk: "Han Dong-hoon’s Prosecution Work" vs Han Dong-hoon: "Defamation Without Logic or Evidence"

Kim "A shallow trick to cover President Yoon's failures"
Han "No one ever told financial authorities to catch anyone"

Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Kim Nam-guk stated on the 6th regarding the controversy over his large cryptocurrency holdings, "Those who truly believe there is a problem should stake everything and play the truth game," adding, "I will stake my political career and all my assets."

[Image source=Yonhap News]

On the same day, Kim wrote on Facebook, "Let's thoroughly verify whether the funds came from unclear sources, whether the cryptocurrency was hidden on a secret USB, and whether there was any illegal investment."

According to a previous media report, Kim, who declared assets worth about 1.2 billion KRW last year, held tens of billions of KRW in cryptocurrency but sold all of it early last year, just before the implementation of the cryptocurrency real-name transaction system (Travel Rule).

Regarding the detailed report on his cryptocurrency transactions, Kim criticized, "Leaking personal sensitive financial and investigation information to the media is the work of Yoon Seok-yeol’s faction’s ‘Han Dong-hoon prosecution’," calling it "a very petty trick to cover up Yoon Seok-yeol’s failures."

He also pointed out, "If ‘Lee Jun-seok of the People Power Party’ invests in cryptocurrency and earns enough money to run three elections, it is considered something to boast about, but if ‘Kim Nam-guk of the Democratic Party’ invests and earns money, it becomes a problem," adding, "The media that promotes Lee Jun-seok as a hot topic but reports Kim Nam-guk as a huge problem is not normal."

Minister of Justice Han Dong-hoon is responding to a lawmaker's question during the 3rd plenary session of the 405th National Assembly (extraordinary session) on education, social, and cultural issues held at the National Assembly in Yeouido, Seoul on the 5th. Photo by Kim Hyun-min kimhyun81@

In response, Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon issued a statement saying, "I regret the disparagement of state institutions without any facts, logic, or evidence."

He added, "Although I do not know the specific details, even based solely on Kim’s own explanation, no one has ever told Kim to buy large amounts of ‘Kimchi Coin’ (cryptocurrency issued domestically) as a high-ranking public official involved in coin issues, nor has anyone told him to get caught by financial authorities."

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