Prosecutors Reapply Arrest Warrant for Current Police Superintendent on Bribery Charges

The High-ranking Officials' Crime Investigation Unit (Gong-su-cheo) has re-requested an arrest warrant for Police Superintendent Kim on charges of accepting bribes worth hundreds of millions of won.

Kim, a police superintendent affiliated with the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, who is accused of receiving hundreds of millions of won in bribes in exchange for resolving complaints related to investigations, is leaving the courtroom after the pre-trial detention hearing held on August 2 at the Seoul Central District Court in Seocho-gu, Seoul.
[Image source=Yonhap News]

The Investigation Division 1 of Gong-su-cheo (Chief Prosecutor Kim Seon-gyu) filed an arrest warrant on the 5th against Superintendent Kim on charges of accepting a large sum of bribes in exchange for halting an investigation (bribery under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes). This comes 125 days after the first arrest warrant was dismissed by the court on August 2 of this year.

Superintendent Kim is accused of receiving bribes worth hundreds of millions of won from a small and medium-sized enterprise from 2020 until recently, in exchange for requests related to investigation matters. Gong-su-cheo is reported to have supplemented the charges in the warrant application by adding allegations that Superintendent Kim received money from Mr. A through additional investigations.

Previously, after the first substantive hearing on the arrest warrant, the court stated, "It is acknowledged that the suspect received a large economic benefit, and as a high-ranking official, it is quite possible that the suspect could exert influence on the police officers handling the case in the future," but also said, "The connection between the economic benefits received by the suspect and the mediation related to the duties of other public officials is not clear, and there is a lack of objective evidence to recognize that the suspect engaged in mediation in specific cases," and thus dismissed the warrant.

The second hearing on Superintendent Kim's arrest warrant will be held at 10 a.m. on the 7th, presided over by Judge Yoo Chang-hoon, the dedicated warrant judge of the Seoul Central District Court.