The special prosecutor team led by Min Jungki, which is investigating First Lady Kim Gunhee, has summoned Lee, the former Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Kakao Mobility, one of the investment firms involved.
According to legal sources on the 20th, the special prosecutor's team investigating Kim Gunhee questioned Lee, the former CFO of Kakao Mobility, the previous day.
The special prosecutor's team reportedly focused its questioning on the circumstances under which Kakao Mobility and other firms invested in IMS Mobility (formerly Be My Car), a company that Yesung Kim?known as First Lady Kim Gunhee's aide?helped establish, as well as the nature of the relationship between Lee and Kim.
Lee, who is known to be an acquaintance of Kim, is suspected of having played a leading role in Kakao Mobility's investment in IMS Mobility. There are suspicions that in 2023, IMS Mobility received an investment of 18.4 billion won from Kakao Mobility and others, and then sold shares worth 4.6 billion won through a shell company called Innovest Korea, thereby profiting from the transaction.
It has been revealed that Lee's wife, identified only as Jeong, is registered as the sole internal director of Innovest, raising suspicions that Innovest may be a shell company owned by Lee.
The special prosecutor's team believes that the investment in question was made with the intent of soliciting a favor from First Lady Kim Gunhee to resolve pending issues. At the time of the investment, Kakao Mobility had been fined 25.7 billion won by the Fair Trade Commission over allegations of call allocation manipulation. The company was also under investigation by the Financial Supervisory Service for suspected accounting fraud. Against this backdrop, there are suspicions that the investment in IMS Mobility was made as a means to seek a favor from First Lady Kim Gunhee.
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