Suwon District Prosecutors' Office Operates Dedicated Team for Lee Hwa-young, Kim Hye-kyung, Ssangbangwool Cases

The prosecution is activating a dedicated investigation team to handle various allegations related to Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, including the 'private misuse of Gyeonggi Province corporate cards by his spouse.'

The Suwon District Prosecutors' Office building. Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

According to the legal community on the 12th, the Suwon District Prosecutors' Office recently reorganized its work assignments under Deputy Chief Prosecutor Lee Jeong-seop to conduct more efficient investigations, reallocating various corruption cases involving Lee and the Ssangbangwool Group, which had been under investigation, to different departments for dedicated handling.

The Criminal Division 6 (Chief Prosecutor Seo Hyun-wook) is responsible for allegations related to former Gyeonggi Province Peace Deputy Governor Lee Hwa-young; the Public Investigation Division (Chief Prosecutor Kim Dong-hee) handles the allegations of misuse of corporate cards by Lee’s spouse during his tenure as governor of Gyeonggi Province; and the Defense Business and Industrial Technology Crime Investigation Division (Chief Prosecutor Ahn Dong-geon) is tasked with various corruption allegations involving the Ssangbangwool Group.

Accordingly, the Criminal Division 6 is expected to focus its investigative efforts on additional violations of the Political Funds Act by former Deputy Governor Lee and on allegations of split donations by former Ssangbangwool Group Chairman Kim Seong-tae during Lee’s Democratic Party presidential primary campaign. Based on Kim’s testimony that he illegally donated about 150 million won at the request of former Deputy Governor Lee, the prosecution conducted a search and seizure at the Central Election Commission last month and is investigating related allegations.

The Public Investigation Division is exclusively handling the so-called 'Gyeonggi Province corporate card misuse allegations,' which claim that Lee’s spouse, Kim Hye-kyung, misused corporate cards for personal purposes during Lee’s tenure as governor of Gyeonggi Province. Last year, the division indicted Lee’s executive secretary Bae Mo on charges of violating the Public Official Election Act in connection with this allegation without detention. Bae was sentenced to 10 months in prison with a two-year probation in the first trial in August and has appealed.

The prosecution judged that additional investigation is necessary regarding Kim, who is an accomplice of Bae, and did not indict her last year. Kim is also charged with breach of trust related to the misuse of corporate cards. Since the statute of limitations for the Public Official Election Act charges against Kim extends until the appellate court’s ruling on Bae’s appeal, the prosecution is expected to conclude the investigation soon.

Additionally, the Defense Business and Industrial Technology Crime Investigation Division will take over the Ssangbangwool corporate corruption cases previously handled by the Criminal Division 6.

The prosecution is also expected to begin investigating a case recently transferred by the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission to the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office, which judged there is a likelihood that Lee was aware of his spouse’s misuse of corporate cards.

Following this reorganization of work assignments, some prosecutors were also reassigned by department. Deputy Chief Prosecutor Park Sang-yong, who was in charge of summoning Lee for questioning on third-party bribery allegations related to North Korea remittances, moved from the Public Investigation Division to the Criminal Division 6. Additionally, five to six prosecutors were reassigned, including some moving from the Criminal Division 6 to the Defense Business and Industrial Technology Crime Investigation Division.

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