South Korea’s former first lady Kim Keon Hee, the wife of the impeached former president Yoon Suk Yeol, has been arrested on corruption charges, a special prosecutor leading a wide-reaching probe said.
The arrest, which came after a Seoul central district court ruling, creates an unprecedented situation in which both members of a former presidential couple are simultaneously in custody.
The court granted the warrant citing the risk of tampering with evidence, according to Yonhap news agency. “The arrest warrant against Kim has been issued,” the prosecutors said in a brief statement.
The charges against Kim include violations of capital market and financial investment laws, as well as political funds laws. She denies the charges.
Yoon Suk Yeol was sent back into detention in July as prosecutors investigate his failed attempt to impose martial law in December last year.
A special counsel was established after Lee Jae Myung was elected president in June to investigate 16 criminal allegations against Kim. However, Wednesday’s arrest warrant covered only three charges.
Prosecutors allege she made over 800 million won (£428,000) through manipulating the stock prices of Deutsch Motors, a local BMW dealership, between 2009 and 2012, by conspiring with others to artificially inflate shares.
She is also accused of receiving over 270 million won worth of illegal political funding through free opinion polling services, and using this to influence candidate selections for the conservative People Power party in the country’s 2022 byelections.
The third charge involves accepting luxury gifts including Chanel handbags and expensive jewellery from the Unification Church through a shaman intermediary, in exchange for favourable treatment of development projects in Cambodia.
Kim was questioned for over seven hours by investigators last week before the arrest warrant was sought.
On issuing the warrant, judge Jeong Jae-wook cited “concerns about evidence destruction” as the primary reason for detention, according to Yonhap News. Kim had spent four and a half hours in court, where she denied all charges against her.
During the hearing, Kim reportedly expressed frustration about her personal affairs being scrutinised, telling the judge she was “upset that even issues from before my marriage keep being brought up”.
She will be held at Nambu detention centre in south-western Seoul, separate from her husband, who has been in custody at Seoul detention centre since July.
Once considered to wield enormous influence behind the scenes during her husband’s presidency, the former arts exhibition company executive was embroiled in a series of issues throughout his term, including the infamous Dior bag scandal, which prosecutors are now also reinvestigating.
In recent weeks, her master’s and doctoral degrees were both revoked over thesis plagiarism.
