hankyoreh

Kim Moon-ki, who had been the SDC’s deputy director of development, arrives at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office on Oct. 6, in order to be questioned in relation to the development corruption scandal in Seongnam’s Daejang neighborhood. (Yonhap News)

An official from the Seongnam Development Corporation (SDC) who had been involved in choosing the developer implicated in a corruption scandal in Seongnam’s Daejang neighborhood was found dead on Tuesday afternoon, shocking the prosecutors investigating the case. Kim Moon-ki, who had been the SDC’s deputy director of development, was the second person to die in connection with the case, following Yoo Han-gi, former director of the SCD’s development division, on Dec. 10.

It’s extremely unusual for multiple people connected with a large-scale investigation into a matter that has garnered public interest to die in such a short period. This twist is also expected to sharpen politicians’ criticism of the prosecutors’ investigation, which has entered its final stage.

Bundang police announced on Tuesday that Kim had been found dead. His body was found by an employee working late who dropped by Kim’s office after being unable to reach him on the phone. The employee then reported Kim’s death to the police.

All the other employees had reportedly left the office for the day except for Kim. The same day, his family members had reported that Kim was missing, sources say.

Kim had been in charge of practical matters related to development in the Daejang neighborhood until early this year. He was reportedly a close associate of Yoo Dong-gyu, former head of the SDC’s strategy office, who has already been arrested and charged.

Kim was involved in two rounds of assessment in March 2015, which resulted in the SDC choosing Seongnamui Tteul (Seongnam Park Co.) as a preferred negotiating partner. Hwacheon Daeyu, an asset management company that’s embroiled in the corruption scandal, worked with Seongnamui Tteul in the negotiations.

When the Daejang development project was underway in 2015, Kim was head of the first development project team. That was when Hwacheon Daeyu asked the SDC’s first development project team to review its draft of the business agreement.

At 10:34 am on May 24, a member of the first development project team surnamed Han submitted a document titled “Review of Revisions to the Business Agreement” for Kim’s approval as head of the team. This official document mentioned the need for a separate clause about distributing profits according to ownership share if the sale price of the apartments exceeded the figure proposed by the developer (4.24 million won per square meter). But that clause was omitted from another revision of the business agreement that Han cleared with Kim and sent to the strategic project team for review at 5:50 pm the same day, a little more than seven hours later.

When the prosecutors called Kim in for questioning back in October, they reportedly pressed him on why the provision about recovering excessive profits from the developer, which had been included in the initial draft, had been omitted from the second draft of the Daejang neighborhood development agreement that the SDC was working on in May 2015. While speaking to reporters outside the prosecutors’ office, Kim said he hadn’t been acting on orders from his superiors.

Then, on Dec. 9, prosecutors questioned Kim once again as a witness in their investigation. “Kim was questioned not as a suspect, but as a witness. He was not under investigation, and we hadn’t asked for a search or arrest warrant,” a source with the prosecution service said.

The prosecutors appear stunned by the deaths of two people who they had been questioning in their investigation into accusations of corruption in the Daejang development project.

Yoo Han-gi, who was charged with accepting a bribe in connection with the Daejang development project, was found dead near his home on Dec. 10. That was one day after the prosecutors had requested an arrest warrant for him on charges of violating the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes.

Along with being director of the SCD’s development division, Yoo had also been president of the Pocheon Urban Corporation.

“While I presume that the prosecutors complied with legal protocols in their investigation, it’s very unfortunate that people who were being questioned about the same case would die one after another like this,” said an attorney who used to work as a prosecutor.

Some think Kim may have been under pressure since he’d reportedly deleted the clause about recovering excess profit on the instructions of Chung Min-yong, former head of the SDC’s strategic project office, who was charged but not arrested on Tuesday. The prosecutors indicted Chung on breach of duty (in violation of the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes) and of accepting a bribe for improper acts and attempting to conceal illegal proceeds.

While Kim was nominally Chung’s superior when Chung was working at the SDC, it was reportedly Chung who instructed Kim to delete the provision about recovering excess profit. Yoo Han-gi, who died on Dec. 10, had been Kim’s superior at the SDC. Yoo, Kim and Chung were all on the panel that selected the developer for the Daejang neighborhood.

The prosecutors have concluded that Chung conspired with people including Yoo Dong-gyu, former head of the SDC’s strategy office; Kim Man-bae, majority stockholder at Hwacheon Daeyu; and Nam Wook, an attorney, so that profit-sharing in the Daejang development project would benefit the developer at the expense of the SDC.

Chung was instrumental in composing the bidding guidelines that served as the foundation for profit-sharing in the Daejang development project in January and February 2015. Those guidelines included all seven of the key provisions requested by Chung Yeong-hak, an accountant.

By Son Hyeon-su, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]