South Korean Opposition Leader Charged With Transferring Funds To North Korea

Lee Jae-myung while serving as Governor of Gyeonggi Province. (Wikimedia Commons/ good luck)

South Korea's opposition leader on Wednesday was charged with bribery in a scheme suspected of using an underwear-making company to transfer funds to North Korea and facilitate a visit to Pyongyang when he was still governor of the province, news reports said.

Deputy Democratic Party Leader Lee Jae-myung was found guilty of bribery and transferred illegal funds to a conspiracy involving the SSangbangwool Group to send USD 8 million to North Korea when he was Governor of Gyeonggi Province.

SSangbangwool is a business group that starts as a underwear maker and then expands into other businesses.

Calls to the public affairs office at the Suwon District Prosecutor's Office were not answered.

Lee has denied involvement or knowledge of the scheme, which began in 2019 and 2020 and aimed at promoting commercial projects with North Korea and Lee's visit to Pyongyang, which will polish his status as a rising political figure.

"I'm not that stupid," Lee said last year, calling the charges against him "fictive" because the court rejected his arrest warrant.

"The prosecutor's creativity is getting worse," he said after Wednesday's indictment.

Lee is a Democratic Party candidate for presidential election in 2022. He narrowly lost to Yoon Suk-yeol, a career prosecutor. Lee himself is still considered the main competitor for the next presidential election in 2027.

He is undergoing a separate trial on corruption charges originating from his term as mayor of a town near Seoul.

It is known that the first summit between North Korea and South Korea in 2000, which was considered the start of the engagement period, was tarnished after government officials were convicted of transferring funds to Pyongyang via the Hyundai Group, which later had exclusive rights to major business ventures in North Korea.