Seoul: The special counsel team investigating allegations surrounding former first lady Kim Keon Hee raided Monday some 10 locations, including the land ministry, as part of its probe into a controversial expressway project suspected of having been rerouted to benefit the Kim family financially.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the special counsel, led by lead prosecutor Min Joong-ki, dispatched investigators to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, two subcontractors, and other locations to confiscate documents and computer files, officials said.
Allegations have surfaced that the government altered the endpoint of the Seoul-Yangpyeong expressway project to a location where Kim's family owns land in Yangpyeong, east of Seoul, as land prices would increase if the road is built.
However, those targeted in Monday's raid did not include then Land Minister Won Hee-ryong and Rep. Kim Sun-gyo of the People Power Party, who was the governor of Yangpyeong county at the time. Kim Sun-gyo is suspected of requesting the revision of the expressway route.
The allegations emerged after authorities decided to consider a review of the route in May 2023, despite the project having passed a feasibility test in 2021. Won Hee-ryong eventually scrapped the project in July 2023 as the scandal unfolded.