Rumors of a Politician Behind the Construction King’s Business: Won Hee-ryong Requests a Special Investigation

A series of allegations have been raised claiming that a powerful politician was behind the so-called “construction king,” Nam (61), responsible for the jeonse fraud in Michuhol-gu, Incheon.

According to the National Assembly on April 21, Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Won Hee-ryong appeared before the parliamentary Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee Thursday and announced, “Nam was involved in an investment project in another area, and from what I know, a special investigation was launched after a tip that a senior politician was involved in solicitation and coercion in the process.”

He also said, “Nam’s legal representative is a lawyer for the Candlelight Human Rights Solidarity and is actively defending the perpetrator claiming the fraud was not schemed.”

Minister Won said, “We have asked the police to swiftly conduct a special investigation based on reasonable suspicions that a greater crime could have been committed in the process of appointing the lawyer, the real estate appraiser, the real estate agent (that conspired in the jeonse fraud), and the local financial institution and in the process of concealing the property through family members.”

Earlier, Park Dae-chul, chief of policy in the People Power Party also mentioned a plan to ask the National Police Agency for a special investigation into the jeonse fraud including the backdrop of how Nam came to appoint an expensive team of legal representatives, as an influential politician in Incheon was suspected of being involved. The People Power Party raised the allegation that a powerful Democratic Party of Korea politician was behind Nam.