Suspicion of Daejang-dong, Baekhyeon-dong, and Money Envelope, Revealing 'Investigation Willingness'
Head of Suwon District Prosecutors' Office Shin Bong-su Replaced for 'North Korea Remittance' Investigation
The top-down system under Prosecutor General Lee Won-seok, who entered his second year in office through a high-level personnel reshuffle in the prosecution, has been solidified. All prosecutors from the 27th Judicial Research and Training Institute class, who are contemporaries of Prosecutor General Lee, were excluded from promotion to high prosecutors and were not appointed as heads of district prosecutors' offices. This appears to be a strategic move to strengthen Prosecutor General Lee's system with one year left in his term and to prevent the dispersion of the command structure.
According to the legal community on the 5th, the Ministry of Justice announced on the 4th that it would announce promotions and transfers for 40 prosecutors at the level of chief prosecutors in the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, effective from the 7th. While minimizing personnel changes among the Ministry of Justice staff, the Supreme Prosecutors' Office staff were completely replaced with those promoted to chief prosecutors in this reshuffle, which is a distinctive feature of this personnel move.
All the deputy chiefs (chief prosecutors) assisting Prosecutor General Lee were replaced with new figures. Sung Sang-heon, the first deputy chief prosecutor of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office (30th class), was appointed as head of the Planning and Coordination Department; Park Se-hyun, head of the Criminal Division at the Seoul High Prosecutors' Office (29th class), as head of the Criminal Affairs Department; Park Young-bin, first deputy chief prosecutor of the Incheon District Prosecutors' Office (30th class), as head of the Narcotics and Organized Crime Department; Park Ki-dong, third deputy chief prosecutor of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office (30th class), as head of the Public Investigation Department; Jeong Yu-mi, chief of the Cheonan Branch Office (30th class), as head of the Trial and Litigation Department; and Park Hyun-jun, deputy chief prosecutor of the Changwon District Prosecutors' Office (30th class), as head of the Scientific Investigation Department. Yang Seok-jo, chief prosecutor of the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office (29th class), who will move to the Supreme Prosecutors' Office Anti-Corruption Department, is the only transferred official.
This is analyzed as reflecting a policy to refresh the atmosphere by replacing the Supreme Prosecutors' Office staff who have been feeling fatigued while normalizing the prosecution work that had been operating abnormally over the past year, and to continue a 'working atmosphere.'
On the other hand, personnel changes among the Ministry of Justice staff were minimized. Among the chief prosecutors serving as Ministry of Justice staff, the only person replaced in this reshuffle was Kim Seok-woo, director of the Judicial Research and Training Institute, who was promoted to high prosecutor and previously served as director of the Legal Affairs Office (27th class). Shin Ja-yong, director of the Prosecution Bureau (28th class), and Kwon Soon-jung, director of the Planning and Coordination Office (29th class), were retained, continuing to work closely with Minister Han, who has entered his second year in office. Moreover, Gu Sang-yeop, first deputy chief prosecutor of the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office (30th class), known as Minister Han's closest aide, was promoted to chief prosecutor and appointed as the new director of the Legal Affairs Office, which is expected to further accelerate the legal administration policy envisioned by Minister Han.
Deputy Chief Prosecutor Gu is regarded as the top expert in the field of fair trade within the prosecution, having been considered a candidate for the first chairman of the Fair Trade Commission under the Yoon Seok-youl administration, and is also evaluated as having outstanding abilities in international legal affairs.
Conversely, none of the 27th class prosecutors, who are contemporaries of Minister Han and Prosecutor General Lee, were included in the list of promotions to high prosecutors. Except for Bae Yong-won, chief prosecutor of the Cheongju District Prosecutors' Office, who is leading the investigation into the Cheongju underground passage flooding, other 27th class prosecutors were not appointed as heads of district prosecutors' offices. However, the 25th class prosecutors, who were promoted to high prosecutors in last year's first regular prosecution personnel reshuffle under the current administration, all maintained their positions as high prosecutors in this reshuffle. Unlike the 26th class prosecutors who expressed their intention to resign before the reshuffle, Im Gwan-hyeok, chief prosecutor of the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors' Office, and Shim Woo-jung, chief prosecutor of the Incheon District Prosecutors' Office, were promoted to chief prosecutors of the Daejeon High Prosecutors' Office and deputy chief prosecutor of the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, respectively.
A deputy chief prosecutor of the Financial and Economic Crime Division said, "It seems like a personnel move to strengthen the Lee Won-seok system," adding, "It can be interpreted as an intention to solidify the command structure by leaving only some seniors ahead of the Prosecutor General and weakening the power of contemporaries."
Meanwhile, Song Kyung-ho, chief prosecutor of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office (29th class), who has been leading investigations into cases involving Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, including allegations of corruption in the Daejang-dong and Baekhyeon-dong development projects and the Democratic Party's party convention money envelope distribution scandal, was retained. The head of the Suwon District Prosecutors' Office, which is handling investigations into allegations of Lee's lawyer fee payments and the Ssangbangwool Group's North Korea remittance scandal, was replaced by Shin Bong-soo, head of the Supreme Prosecutors' Office Anti-Corruption Department (29th class). It appears that Shin's detailed understanding of cases related to Lee, gained through his leadership of special investigations at prosecution offices nationwide, was taken into account.
Kim Yoo-cheol, head of the Supreme Prosecutors' Office Public Investigation Department (29th class), known for his expertise in public security, was appointed as chief prosecutor of the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office, which has jurisdiction over Yeouido, where the National Assembly is located, ahead of next year's general elections. The Southern District Prosecutors' Office is also known as the 'Yeouido Grim Reaper' due to its focus on financial, securities, and virtual asset crimes.
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