South Korea’s former first woman Kim Keon Hee arrives on the particular prosecutor’s workplace in Seoul, South Korea, August 6, 2025.
Kim Hong-Ji | Reuters
South Korea on Friday indicted its former first woman, Kim Keon Hee, on expenses of bribery and market manipulation.
She was indicted for amassing over 1 billion gained (about $720,000) in felony proceeds, violating a number of legal guidelines of the nation, together with capital market and monetary funding enterprise, and political funds act, in keeping with an announcement in Korean from particular counsel Min Joong-ki’s staff, translated by CNBC.
This features a inventory manipulation scheme between 2010 and 2012, leading to illicit earnings of over 810 million gained.
Kim is the spouse of former President Yoon Suk Yeol whose short-lived martial regulation in December 2024 led to his impeachment and removing from workplace earlier this 12 months. He was arrested and faces expenses of riot over his martial regulation bid, which carries a most penalty of loss of life.
Kim allegedly additionally conspired with Yoon to obtain 270 million gained value of opinion polls information at no cost from round June 2021 to round March 2022, in keeping with the authorities. She is also accused of acquiring 80 million gained in bribes and valuables from the Unification Church in 2022, in return for her assist for the group.
Individually, ex-prime minister Han Duck-soo was indicted for abetting the short-lived martial regulation bid by Yoon. South Korean media outlet Yonhap mentioned Han’s expenses embody “abetting the ringleader of an riot, perjury, falsifying and destroying official paperwork, and different offenses.”
These expenses come as President Lee Jae Myung reportedly authorized laws again in June for investigations into Yoon’s martial regulation bid, in addition to probes into Kim and different allegations towards Yoon’s administration.
Yoon had beforehand vetoed these investigations whereas in workplace, in keeping with home media.
These probes had reportedly led to raids on a church in South Korea and into Osan Air Base, a joint base operated by each the U.S. and South Korean air forces.
U.S. President Donald Trump had referenced these raids forward of his assembly with South Korea’s Lee on Monday stateside, saying that there have been “very vicious raids on church buildings” and “that they even went right into a navy base and acquired info.”
Earlier than his assembly with Lee, Trump had posted on Fact Social, saying “WHAT IS GOING ON IN SOUTH KOREA? Looks as if a Purge or Revolution. We will not have that and do enterprise there,” though he didn’t reference any particular occasion.
The U.S. president later softened his stance in the course of the assembly with Lee, saying that “I am positive it is a misunderstanding.”
— CNBC’s Blair Baek contributed to this report.
