Seongnam City in Gyeonggi Province, which is pursuing the recovery of criminal proceeds from the Daejang-dong ring, confirmed that many of the accounts it provisionally seized had balances of only tens of thousands to tens of millions of won‘empty accounts’.

Seongnam City claimed that when prosecutors handed the relevant account information to the city, they already knew this but provided no additional information such as the status of concealed criminal proceeds, effectively passing along data of no real meaning.

According to materials issued on the 12th in the name of Seongnam Mayor Shin Sang-jin, as of the 9th, the balances in the Daejang-dong group accounts confirmed through provisional seizures by Seongnam City totaled only a little over 400 million won, which is 0.1% of the total criminal proceeds of 444.9 billion won.

Specifically, for the Hwacheon Daeyu account linked to Kim Man-bae, the amount claimed was 27 billion won? Wait, check: It says 2700억원 which is 270 billion won. Correct. Let's write: the amount claimed was 270 billion won, but when the account was actually examined, the recognized balance was 70,000 won; the ‘The Spring’ account held just 50,000 won against a claim of 100 billion won.

For the account of ‘NSJ Holdings’ linked to Nam Wook, there were about 48 million won against a claim of 30 billion won, and the ‘JS IRE’ account, for which 4 billion won was claimed, was at a little over 400 million won.

Seongnam City stated that this indicates the Daejang-dong cohort had already siphoned off criminal proceeds worth hundreds of billions of won before or during the execution of preservation for confiscation by prosecutors on these accounts.

Seongnam City strongly protested, “Even though prosecutors already knew this during the process of seeking preservation for confiscation before indicting the Daejang-dong members in 2022, they did not notify us of this.”

The city said its own analysis of the prosecution’s investigation records indicates that, as of late July 2022, prosecutors were likely aware that approximately 427.7 billion won96.1% of the Daejang-dong group’s total criminal proceeds of 444.9 billion wonhad already been spent or hidden and disappeared.

Even that mostly flowed out before a court issued a preservation-for-confiscation order and the funds were frozen, leaving current balances at only a little over 400 million won, or about 0.1% of the total, Seongnam City said.

The city also claimed that, although prosecutors have information for tracing and recovering the criminal proceeds of the Daejang-dong cohort, they are not providing it to the city.

Seongnam City explained, “The investigation report states that most of the criminal proceeds obtained by the Daejang-dong members were concealed through cash and check withdrawals, the establishment of corporations under borrowed names, and investments in finance and high-priced real estate,” and added, “In particular, it had a concrete grasp of the withdrawal and concealment status of criminal proceeds, such as the fact that even while the suspects were in detention, funds were continually taken out of corporate accounts and the proceeds were being concealed and spent with outside assistance.”

Mayor Shin Sang-jin of Seongnam said, “Despite knowing that the Daejang-dong group had already siphoned off the criminal proceeds, the prosecution’s conduct of throwing to Seongnam City only early-stage decisions that are of no practical use is not merely non-cooperation but a deception against Seongnam City and the public,” adding, “It is no different from ‘protection’ that bought the Daejang-dong group time.”

He added, “Even now, Seongnam City is painstakingly going through the massive 260,000 pages of criminal records one by one to find the Daejang-dong group’s hidden assets,” and, “Prosecutors should, even at this point, provide Seongnam City with a ‘list of executions of preservation for confiscation’ covering all of the Daejang-dong group’s assets, based on materials prepared under the Prosecutorial Case Affairs Rules.”