Former and current prosecutors from the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office are set to face off over a record-breaking stock manipulation case involving illicit gains amounting to a staggering 660 billion KRW. The mastermind behind the so-called 'Yeongpung Paper Incident,' Mr. Lee (54), who led the stock manipulation ring, has hired a large number of lawyers who are former prosecutors from the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office, the very office that indicted him. He was arrested and brought to trial last month following an investigation by the Southern District Prosecutors' Office.
According to the legal community on the 28th, Mr. Lee, currently on trial at the Seoul Southern District Court, recently appointed a total of 10 lawyers from four law firms (Inwol, Min, Jungburo, and Taeung). Among them, five are former prosecutors, and notably, four have experience working at the Southern District Prosecutors' Office, drawing attention.
The key figures to note are lead attorneys Jihun Bae and Seongjun Choi of the Inwol Law Firm. Both, classmates from the 40th Judicial Research and Training Institute, worked respectively at the Southern District Prosecutors' Office's Joint Securities Crime Investigation Unit and the Financial Investigation Division 2. In 2019, they were simultaneously assigned to the investigation team for the so-called 'Lime Incident,' which involved the suspension of redemptions of funds worth approximately 1.6 trillion KRW. In January 2020, under the Moon Jae-in administration, then-Minister of Justice Choo Mi-ae disbanded the Joint Securities Crime Investigation Unit, and both attorneys retired in May and August 2021, respectively. They also represent Mr. Lee and his co-defendants who were indicted together.
Notably, Deputy Chief Prosecutor Seungho Shin of the Southern District Prosecutors' Office, who practically led the investigation into the Yeongpung Paper Incident, and lead attorney Choi worked in the same department in 2019. Deputy Chief Shin personally attended the 'Yeongpung Paper Incident Interim Investigation Results Briefing' held on the 14th of last month following Mr. Lee's arrest and indictment, emphasizing that "(the illicit gains of 660 billion KRW) are unprecedented in scale for a single stock among cases we have investigated so far." The scale of these illicit gains is expected to be a central issue in the upcoming trial, setting the stage for a fierce battle between former and current prosecutors of the Southern District Prosecutors' Office who once worked closely together over proving the charges against Mr. Lee, the head of the stock manipulation ring.
Among the defense team members, lead attorney Daejung Jeong of the Jungburo Law Firm served as the head prosecutor of the Financial Investigation Division 2 at the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office in 2017. Attorney Sangok Lee of the Min Law Firm was also the head prosecutor of the trial division at the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office in July 2012. However, the Southern District Prosecutors' Office has functioned as a 'Financial Crime Focused Office' only since February 2015.
The Yeongpung Paper Incident was a case thoroughly investigated over several months by the Southern District Prosecutors' Office's Joint Financial and Securities Crime Investigation Unit. Early in the incident, Mr. Lee fled, nearly causing the investigation to falter, but the case dramatically turned around when he was arrested in January while attempting to stow away. Mr. Lee is expected to express his position on the charges for the first time at the hearing scheduled for the 12th of next month. Given that his defense attorneys are former prosecutors well-versed in the investigation process at the Southern District Prosecutors' Office, a fierce legal battle with the prosecution is anticipated.
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