Owner of Cheonhwa Dongin No.7 "False Report for Lee Jae-myung's Re-election as Seongnam Mayor"

A former journalist, the actual owner of Cheonhwa Dongin No. 7, recently testified during a prosecution investigation that "it is true that I made false reports to support Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, in his re-election as mayor of Seongnam."

Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, is speaking at a press conference marking the first anniversary of his party leadership held at the National Assembly on the 31st. Photo by Kim Hyun-min kimhyun81@

According to the legal community on the 5th, the Anti-Corruption Investigation Division 3 of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office (Chief Prosecutor Kang Baek-shin) obtained this statement while summoning and investigating former journalist Bae Mo, who is accused of concealing criminal proceeds from the Daejang-dong case.

Bae is also suspected of making false reports related to Lee’s so-called 'sister-in-law curse' issue during the 2014 local elections. Just before the local elections, when the relevant audio recording was released and Lee’s re-election became uncertain, Jeong Jin-sang, former political coordination chief of the Democratic Party leader’s office, Yoo Dong-gyu, former planning director of Seongnam Urban Development Corporation, and private businessman Nam Wook reportedly made false reports about the family of Shin Young-soo, the Saenuri Party candidate and Lee’s competitor.

They allegedly used Bae, who was then a YTN journalist, to report the false claim that "Shin’s younger brother was prosecuted by the prosecution for distributing an illegal recording related to the sister-in-law curse," and Bae passed this on to another reporter Kim Mo at the same company, leading to a false report titled "Illegal Voice File Distribution of Seongnam Mayor Candidate Caught" being published the day before the election, according to the prosecution.

The prosecution believes that Kim Man-bae, the major shareholder of Hwacheon Daeyu Asset Management, was also aware of the circumstances surrounding the report prompted by Bae’s tip. Regarding this, Yoo, the former director, testified as a witness at Jeong’s trial in April, saying, "I told Bae through Kim Man-bae and Nam Wook, and then reporter Kim wrote the article," adding, "Jeong was very pleased. There was an expression like 'This is the best.'"

Kim is also under investigation alongside former media union chairman Shin Hak-rim for allegedly conducting a false interview with Newstapa just before the last presidential election, claiming that "President Yoon Seok-youl covered up the investigation of the Busan Savings Bank case." Given that Kim was involved in prompting media coverage just before the election to support Lee’s victory, the two allegations are considered to have a similar pattern.

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