Tag: corruption

This is not a renewable energy issue, this is more an issue of government picking winners and losers and people in the government benefiting from the winners they chose:

A total of 251 officials at public institutions were found to have taken part in solar panel businesses to make money in violation of ethics regulations during the previous Moon Jae-in administration, the state audit agency said Tuesday.

The officials from eight institutions, including the state-run Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO), ran solar panel businesses either under their own names or under the names of relatives, according to the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI).

During the Moon administration, solar power was considered not only as clean and environmentally friendly energy but also as a potentially lucrative investment opportunity, with stability and long-term prospects supported by strong government backing.

An example includes a KEPCO official who operated six solar power stations under the names of relatives after using insider information, reaping a combined profit of 880 million won (US$662,000), the BAI said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Very convenient that Lee Jae-myung checks himself into a hospital due to his so call hunger strike when prosecutors issue an arrest warrant for him:

Democratic Party of Korea head Rep. Lee Jae-myung, who is on day 19 of his hunger strike against the Yoon Suk Yeol administration, is transferred out of his office on a stretcher Monday morning. (Yonhap)

Rep. Lee Jae-myung, the bedridden leader of the Democratic Party of Korea on a strike against what he calls President Yoon Suk Yeol’s “tyrannical rule,” is wanted by prosecutors on an arrest warrant request for the second time this year.

Seoul prosecutors said Monday they filed a request for an arrest warrant against Lee, who is already a defendant in two corruption trials, on three different counts of accusations.

One is that he colluded with a policy aide while he was mayor of Seongnam to hand favors such as a change in land permits to private developers, allowing them to illicitly profit from a city development project. The second is that he personated a prosecutor, and then asked a witness to testify falsely in court. The last is that he, as governor of Gyeonggi Province, paid North Korean authorities to organize his Pyongyang trip and to negotiate the province’s business deals with North Korea.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

More corruption allegations against the prior Moon administration:

Presidential spokesman Lee Do-woon speaks to reporters in a briefing at the Yongsan presidential office in central Seoul on Wednesday. [NEWS1]

President Yoon Suk Yeol called for “a thorough investigation” of corruption allegations made against solar power projects under the previous government.  
   
The Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) on Tuesday requested a probe on a total of 38 individuals, including government officials, over alleged corrupt acts, and the president ordered the Office of the Secretary for Civil Service Discipline to conduct “a thorough investigation on those who were involved in the decision-making process regarding renewables projects” under the former Moon Jae-in administration, said presidential spokesperson Lee Do-woon during a press briefing Wednesday. (…..)

Gunsan Mayor Kang was accused of providing preferential treatment to a local company whose CEO graduated from the same high school as the mayor.

The BAI also accused two former officials from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy of colluding with a private company for a 300-megawatt solar power plant project in Taean, South Chungcheong. The two former officials allegedly helped the company work around a regulation on land use through an authoritative interpretation without a legal basis. One of the officials was later named an executive of the company, and the other official was also hired as an executive of another solar company. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

So it was okay to investigate and jail former Presidents Park and Lee for corruption, but not okay to investigate Lee Jae-myung for arguably equal to or worse corruption:

The main opposition Democratic Party (DP) staged a large-scale rally in central Seoul on Saturday to protest against the prosecution’s widening corruption probe into its embattled leader. 

Tens of thousands of party members joined the rally, as DP leader Lee Jae-myung is currently under investigation over corruption allegations surrounding a massive development project pushed for in Seongnam, south of Seoul, when he was the city’s mayor.

During the event, Lee accused prosecutors of hampering democracy by targeting him, President Yoon Suk Yeol’s former rival in the last presidential race. 

“Prosecutors are taking major posts in the government, and they are threatening people with arrest warrants, instead of soldiers’ guns and swords,” Lee said during his closing remarks. “Politics is giving its place to violent ruling.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but this protests shows that Lee must think he is close to being charged and headed to jail.

This could be bad news for opposition leader Lee Jae-myung:

A fugitive underwear tycoon nabbed in Thailand last week in connection with the prosecution’s ongoing investigation into opposition leader Lee Jae-myung’s corruption allegations returned home Tuesday.

Kim Seong-tae, former chairman of underwear maker Ssangbangwool Group, arrived at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul, around 8:20 a.m. via an Asiana Airlines flight from Bangkok.

He was apprehended by Thai police at a golf club near Bangkok a week ago, roughly eight months after he fled the country amid several high-profile corruption investigations.

Kim has been long sought after by prosecutors as a key suspect in a number of high-profile corruption investigations, including alleged payment of Lee’s attorney expenses by proxy, suspected embezzlement of company funds and alleged transfer of cash to North Korea.

The 55-year-old Kim, handcuffed and flanked by prosecution investigators, was asked if he had any relationship with Lee, the chairman of the main opposition Democratic Party (DP), by reporters at the airport but flatly said he did not know him at all.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This isn’t the first and likely not the last large corruption case to happen at Camp Humphreys:

More than two dozen South Koreans, including several employed by the U.S. military, were indicted on charges of employment fraud following a two-year investigation, South Korean police said Monday.

Twenty-six people, including 10 current and former U.S. Forces Korea employees, pocketed roughly $138,700 in exchange for preferential treatment of Korean job candidates between April 2018 and December 2020, the Daegu Metropolitan Police statement said. 

USFK is the military command in charge of roughly 28,500 troops on the Korean Peninsula.

Two defendants, including an official with the USFK Labor Service Corps, were arrested according to police. The labor official and others are suspected of receiving between $23,800 and $31,700 from five job seekers in exchange for favorable reviews during their interviews.

The defendants allegedly created fake certifications required for employment. Police confiscated around $126,800 from the defendants prior to their arrest.

The investigation was launched after the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division obtained information about the bribes and relayed it to South Korean authorities. An Eighth Army spokesman declined to comment on whether the suspects were privy to sensitive military information.

“These arrests involved persons and activities that may be related to the Korean Service Corps and are currently the subject of a criminal investigation,” Army Lt. Col. Neil Penttila said in a statement Tuesday. “We will withhold further comment until the completion of that investigation.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Here is an interesting academic corruption nugget from the Korea Times:

Nearly half of all underage co-authors listed in research papers from Seoul National University (SNU) were the children of SNU professors, a ruling party lawmaker said, Thursday, calling for harsher disciplinary action against misconduct involving research by professors abusing their status. 

According to Rep. Seo Dong-yong of the Democratic Party of Korea, who is on the National Assembly Education Committee, the university’s 22 research papers that listed minors as co-authors were concluded as cases of misconduct. Among them, nine involved children of SNU professors.

Among the nine cases, four professors listed their own children as co-authors, while five listed children of their colleagues. 

Other than children of SNU professors, there were more cases involving children of their acquaintances, such as friends and relatives, Rep. Seo said. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but this is a clever way that these professor are giving their children a leg up on college admissions by showing their have published research articles when really their parent likely did all the work for them.

Just think former President Park was impeached and jailed for far less and the police can’t even get an arrest warrant for this guy that cheated the Seongnam government out of $92 million:

A Seoul court on Thursday rejected an arrest warrant for a key suspect at the center of a snowballing regional development corruption scandal, dealing a blow to the investigation into the case that has become the hottest topic in South Korean politics.

The Seoul Central District Court denied the prosecution’s request to arrest Kim Man-bae, owner of an asset management firm, Hwacheon Daeyu Asset Management, on bribery and other charges, citing an insufficient explanation of the need to detain him.

Kim, a former journalist, has been under investigation in connection with how his previously little-known firm reaped massive profits from a 2015 project to develop the Daejang-dong district in the city of Seongnam, south of Seoul, into apartment complexes.

The former journalist allegedly colluded with Yoo Dong-gyu, then acting president of Seongnam Development Corp. in charge of the project, to engineer a contract between the two sides to remove a clause limiting the amount of profits that the firm could take from the project.

Prosecutors alleged that Kim caused more than 110 billion won (US$92 million) of losses to the Seongnam city government by removing the clause. He was also accused of giving Yoo 500 million won as part of a deal to pay him a total of 70 billion won.

Yoo is considered a close aide to Gyeonggi Gov. Lee Jae-myung, the ruling party’s presidential nominee, and Lee served as Seongnam mayor from 2010-2018. Kim also interviewed Lee seven months before setting up his asset firm.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Not a good look even if there isn’t corruption going on, but in the case of the LH scandal we know there was corruption likely going on:

About half of top officials at the central government and state-run institutions own land as part of their wealth, a government report showed Thursday, amid mounting public outrage over a land speculation scandal involving public officials. (…….)

The report came in light of a snowballing controversy surrounding alleged speculative land purchases by employees at the Korea Land and Housing Corp. (LH), the state housing supply arm, based on insider knowledge. 

At least 20 LH employees are suspected of having purchased huge swathes of undeveloped land around Seoul over a few years with undisclosed information on plans to construct major residential towns there. The scandal has rocked the nation as it emerged at a time when public anger over the nation’s soaring housing and rent prices is running high.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is part of the reason why the Moon administration has been going after Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl because he had his prosecutors investigate this corruption:

Former Justice Minister Cho Kuk’s wife was sentenced by a Seoul court on Wednesday to imprisonment of four years for academic fraud.

The Seoul Central District Court handed down the jail sentence, together with a fine of 500 million won (US$451,000), to Chung Kyung-sim, the wife of the former presidential secretary for civil affairs and a close aide to President Moon Jae-in.

The court also ordered the immediate imprisonment of Chung.

Chung was indicted in November last year on 15 counts of charges related to her daughter’s college admission and her dubious investment in a private equity fund (PEF).

Chung is accused of being involved in fabricating documentation from 2013-2014, including a college presidential citation, in order to get her daughter admitted to medical school.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but I doubt that she will do four years in jail. She will get her sentenced reduced probably on appeal as things tend to happen. Her husband Cho Kuk is still under investigation for his role in these corrupt dealings.