Prosecutors: "A Significant Number of Incumbent Lawmakers Identified in Cash Envelope Bribery"

The prosecution investigating the Democratic Party of Korea's 'party convention money envelope scandal' is reported to have identified several incumbent lawmakers who received the money.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

A Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office official involved in the investigation said on the 18th, "The investigation is ongoing targeting those who received the money envelopes, and we believe a substantial part of the facts have been revealed," adding, "Regarding the incumbent lawmakers, a significant portion of the investigation is underway, including identifying the recipients."

The prosecution believes that the 94 million won in money envelopes was distributed among three groups: incumbent lawmakers, regional headquarters chiefs, and regional situation room chiefs. Based on the analysis of seized items and investigations of related parties, they are identifying recipients by group. Currently, the identification of the regional headquarters chiefs group has progressed the most.

The prosecution plans to summon independent lawmakers Yoon Kwan-seok and Lee Sung-man, who are suspected of involvement in the distribution process, as suspects to confirm the specific details of the funding procurement and delivery, as well as the recipients. The prosecution understands that Lawmaker Yoon was involved in the process of delivering funds to lawmakers, while Lawmaker Lee was involved in delivering funds to regional headquarters chiefs.

Previously detained key suspect Kang Rae-gu, former Standing Auditor of Korea Water Resources Corporation, reportedly pointed to Lawmaker Yoon as the person responsible, claiming he did not know about the money envelopes delivered to lawmakers during recent prosecution questioning. The prosecution plans to investigate Lawmaker Lee on the 19th and then Lawmaker Yoon. The investigation schedule for Lawmaker Yoon is likely to be early next week.

After the investigations of the two lawmakers are completed, the Democratic Party lawmakers who received the money envelopes are also expected to be investigated. The prosecution is also investigating the possibility that additional funds were distributed through former party leader Song Young-gil's external support organization, the Peace and Livelihood Research Institute (Meoksa-yeon), besides the 94 million won. In this regard, during a search of Meoksa-yeon on the 29th of last month, the prosecution discovered that some PC hard drives had been formatted or replaced, and has registered two employees, including accounting staff Park, on charges of evidence tampering and is investigating.

Regarding Meoksa-yeon's claim that the computers were regularly replaced, a prosecution official said, "Evidence tampering circumstances were confirmed, so the investigation is ongoing; if it were a simple device replacement, there would have been no investigation." He added, "Including the evidence tampering part, the investigation is also proceeding on the charge of instructing evidence tampering." This is interpreted to mean that it is possible to determine whether the 'upper echelon' ordered them to tamper with evidence. However, the official added, "This does not mean we are investigating Park's visit while former leader Song was in Paris in March this year."

Depending on the progress of the investigation, the possibility of requesting additional arrest warrants for related parties is also being discussed. A prosecution official stated, "We plan to intensify the investigation to uncover the full truth within Kang's extended detention period until the 27th."

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