The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office, which is investigating 먹튀검증the Daejeon-dong incident, searched and seized the home and office of Shin Shin-rim (65), former chairman of the Korean Press Union, on the 1st. Mr. Shin interviewed Mr. Man-Bae Kim (major shareholder of Hwacheon Dayu) on September 15, 2021, and had Mr. Kim’s false interview with then People Power Party presidential candidate Seok-yeol Yoon reported three days before the presidential election through Newstapa, where he was an expert. are facing charges.
Mr. Shin is also accused of receiving 165 million won from Mr. Kim Man-bae on two occasions immediately after the interview. The prosecution is said to have listed charges in the search and seizure warrant, including that “Mr. Shin received a transfer of 162 million won on September 20, 2021, along with a request from Mr. Kim Man-bae to report the interview content just before the 20th presidential election.”
On March 6th last year, Newstapa released the recording file and its contents of the ‘Kim Man-bae interview’ to the effect that ‘candidate Seok-yeol Yoon met Woo-hyung Jo, the loan broker in the Busan Savings Bank case, in his office while he was a prosecutor and cleared up the investigation of Mr. Cho.’ .
The prosecution reportedly determined that the interview content was false. In several prosecution investigations, including in November 2021, Mr. Cho, the party involved, said, “The prosecutor I met when investigating the Busan Savings Bank was not Prosecutor Yoon Seok-yeol, but Prosecutor Park.” “In September 2021, I told Mr. Kim Man-bae, ‘During the investigation of Busan Savings Bank, Yoon Seok-yeol and others used coffee. He made a statement saying, “I received a phone call asking for your understanding as I will tell you (in the interview) that I gave you a ride.” The prosecution applied the Anti-Graft Act to Mr. Shin after the election law statute of limitations (6 months) expired.
The interview with Kim Man-bae was conducted in early September 2021, right after the Daejang-dong suspicions began to be reported in the media, and a month later, the Democratic Party began claiming that ‘Yoon Seok-yeol is the body of Daejang-dong’. A prosecution official said, “Newstapa’s report was made three days before the presidential election,” and “interference in the presidential election is suspected.”
On this day, Mr. Shin said, “I sold the three books I wrote to Mr. Kim for a total of 165 million won, including VAT. He denied the charges, saying, “I couldn’t determine whether the interview with Kim Man-bae was false or not.”
Newstapa reported the edited version of the recording file and its contents of the ‘Interview with Kim Man-bae’ recorded by Shin Shin-rim on March 6, 2022, three days before the presidential election. The interview was said to have been conducted for approximately 1 hour and 12 minutes at a coffee shop in Pangyo, Seongnam on September 15, 2021. In relation to the Daejeon-dong suspicions, it was soon after reports about Kim Man-bae began.
In the recording file, Mr. Kim said to Mr. Shin, “(In 2011, Mr. Jo Woo-hyung went for an investigation) and Yoon Seok-yeol asked, ‘Are you Jo Woo-hyung?’ “Like this,” “Park ○○ (prosecutor) gave me coffee, asked me a few questions, and then sent it to me. There is a line that says, “So the incident disappeared.” Mr. Kim said, “I introduced you to Park Young-soo.” “Yoon Seok-yeol (Park Young-soo) was with you.” “I introduced you to someone who could connect.” “It worked.” He also said, “I just looked at it.”
President Yoon was the chief prosecutor of the Busan Savings Bank case as the head of the 2nd Central Investigation Division of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office in 2011, and Woohyung Jo was a broker who arranged loans from Busan Savings Bank when another businessman was leading the initial Daejang-dong project. The claim was that President Yoon, at the request of former special prosecutor Park Young-soo, had a junior prosecutor take care of Jo Woo-hyung. However, the prosecution’s investigation revealed that Mr. Cho met only prosecutor Park. It is reported that Mr. Cho also stated that he received a call from Mr. Man-Bae Kim in September 2021 saying, “Please understand that I will say (in the interview) that Seok-Yeol Yoon and others gave me coffee during the Busan Savings Bank investigation.” It is said that this is a ‘crackdown’ situation regarding a false interview.
In the recorded file, Kim Man-bae said of Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myeong, “(The reason why Seongnam City had to pay 25 billion won for Daejang-dong project operation costs to Hwacheon Daeyu) was done by Jae-myung Lee or who did it, and it’s absolutely astonishing. Jae-myung Lee is the one who said, “I cursed at (CEO Lee) a lot (because I had to bear the additional costs). Communist-like XXThere is also a part that says, This is something that other private business operators in Daejeon-dong also said, and was often used by CEO Lee as a basis for defending against charges of breach of trust. Since he harshly imposed costs on private operators in Daejeon-dong, he was not in breach of trust.
Shin Shin-rim kept this recording for six months and released it through Newstapa three days before the presidential election. Newstapa reports were heavily posted on online communities that day, and most of them ranked at the top of recommendations. A post with more ‘likes’ than views was discovered, and around midnight, more than 20,000 comments and recommendations were received. In relation to this, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency sent a suspect who posted a post related to Newstapa’s report on a community site in August last year and increased the number of recommendations through mechanical manipulation to the prosecution with a recommendation for indictment.
On March 7th last year, the day after the Newstapa report, CEO Lee posted on Facebook, “I ask the public to judge whether what Lee Jae-myung, who was pointed out as the body of Daejang-dong, was correct, and whether what the people who falsely accused him of being the body of Daejang-dong were true. And please show it by voting on March 9th,” he wrote.
Prior to Newstapa’s report, the Democratic Party raised the same suspicions in October 2021, a month after Shin met Kim Man-bae. On October 16 of that year, then-Democratic Party presidential candidate Lee Jae-myeong posted on Facebook, “Why did candidate Yoon Seok-yeol (People Power Party) not investigate the Daejeon-dong loan case as the chief prosecutor of the Busan Savings Bank investigation? He posted, “The person who will be arrested is not Jae-Myung Lee, but Candidate Yoon.” Representative Lee also asked President Yoon in a TV debate, “Why did you give coffee to Jo Woo-hyung?”
Song Young-gil, the Democratic Party leader at the time, said, “The transcript of Kim Man-bae has been released, revealing why Yoon Seok-yeol and Park Young-soo are the main bodies of Daejang-dong, which we have consistently claimed.” Baek Hye-ryeon, chief spokesperson for the Democratic Party’s campaign committee, said, “The truth must be revealed from the Busan Savings Bank loan corruption, which is the starting point of the Daejang-dong corruption, to Hwacheon Daeyu,” and called for a ‘special prosecutor Yoon Seok-yeol.’
The three books that Mr. Shin is said to have sold for 165 million won are volumes 1 to 3 of ‘Map of the Margins that Rule the Republic of Korea.’ It was published in 2020, but is currently not sold in the market. On this day, Mr. Shin said, “I did not hand over the copyright to the book, but I handed over three books.” “Why are you handing over the copyright? He also said, “I need to get several billion won.”
After joining the Hankook Ilbo in 1984, Shin served as chairman of the National Press Union, president of Media Today, and expert member of Newstapa. He was once a colleague at the Hankook Ilbo with Mr. Kim.
Meanwhile, Newstapa issued a statement saying, “At the time, the article was published without any basis to view the recording as fact,” and added, “Newstapa was not aware of the fact that Mr. Shin sold his work to Mr. Kim.” .