INVESTIGATION ON LAND SCANDAL GAINS PACE

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Prosecutors investigating the Daejang-dong land development scandal have frozen 5 billion won that independent lawmaker Kwak Sang-do's son had received from Hwacheondaeyu. The investigation is gaining pace ahead of requesting arrest warrants for the firm's major shareholder Kim Man-bae and lawyer Nam Wook.

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Prosecutors investigating the Daejang-dong land development scandal have frozen 5 billion won that the son of independent lawmaker Kwak Sang-do had received from Hwacheondaeyu. A court has accepted the prosecutors' request to freeze bank accounts under Kwak's name. Assets that are suspected to have been acquired illegally can be confiscated until a guilty verdict is issued. The court said the possibility that the 5 billion won were paid as a bribe to Kwak cannot be ruled out. The prosecutors subpoenaed the lawmaker's son on October 21 as a suspect. They will soon summon Kwak himself to interrogate him about the money. On Tuesday they again summoned Hwacheondaeyu's major shareholder Kim Man-bae and lawyer Nam Wook, the owner of Cheonhwa Dongin No. 4. They also summoned lawyer Chung Min-young, who graduated from the same college as Nam Wook and took part in the examination of the Daejang-dong project. The prosecutors are apparently interrogating Kim and others for days in order to request arrest warrants for them. They might request arrest warrants as early as Wednesday or within this week at the latest. Raids on the Seongnam City Hall server have been underway since October 18. Prosecutors are tracing the emails and electronic payment records of about a dozen Seongnam City Hall officials involved in the scandal. They have obtained information on then-Seongnam mayor Lee Jae-myung and his close aide Chung Jin-sang. Prosecutors are investigating the seized information to find out how much of the land development project was approved and reported, and if any closed-door discussions not recorded in the official archives were held.