Two Brokers Who Helped Evade Military Service Had Long-Standing Partnership... Assisted in Medical Exemptions

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyung-min] It has been confirmed that military service brokers Koo Mo (47) and Kim Mo (38), who were arrested and indicted on charges of obtaining military service exemption and reduction by receiving false epilepsy diagnoses, had previously been business partners.

According to the indictment of broker Kim submitted by the Ministry of Justice to the office of Assemblywoman Jo Su-jin of the People Power Party on the 3rd, Koo and Kim maintained a close relationship by assisting in the process of evading military service for doctor A, who was scheduled to serve as a public health doctor.

Psychological Test During Military Service Physical Examination / Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

A received a level 3 active duty rating and was transferred to serve as a public health doctor starting in April 2021. During this time, A’s mother, B, saw a false epilepsy scenario file received from Koo and pretended to have a seizure in a park in Mok-dong, Seoul, in March 2021. Subsequently, from April to July of the same year, A conspired with Koo and Kim to obtain epilepsy medication and undergo EEG tests. In November, A submitted a military medical certificate issued by a neurologist diagnosing “epilepsy of unspecified type without intractable epilepsy” to the Military Manpower Administration.

Through Koo’s introduction, they visited another hospital in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, pretending to be epilepsy patients and obtained and submitted a military medical certificate diagnosing “simple partial seizures leading to generalized seizures without intractable epilepsy.” Ultimately, A received a level 5 wartime labor service rating in March of last year. The prosecution has determined that Koo and Kim received 110 million won from A and B as payment for their services.

Koo and Kim had denied their relationship until now, but the prosecution, considering A’s case and others, believes they have been business partners for a long time. The Joint Investigation Team on Military Service Evasion of the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office (Team Leader Park Eun-hye, Head of Criminal Division 5) indicted Kim on the 26th of last month and also charged A and his mother B, who assisted in the crime, as accomplices.

According to the prosecution’s investigation, Kim learned about methods to evade military service by receiving an epilepsy diagnosis from Koo, whom he met while working as an administrative agent in February 2020, and was involved in assisting Koo in the process of collecting hundreds of thousands to millions of won through these methods.