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Ex-first lady Kim Keon Hee arrives for pretrial detention hearing on multiple allegations

Published: 12 Aug. 2025, 09:52 Updated: 12 Aug. 2025, 17:57

Members of Special Counsel Min Joong-ki’s team investigating various allegations involving former First Lady Kim Keon Hee carry boxes of seized items after completing a raid of Seohee Construction’s headquarters in southern Seoul on Aug. 11. [NEWS1]

Former first lady Kim Keon Hee arrived at Seoul Central District Court in southern Seoul at 9:27 a.m. on Tuesday to attend a pretrial detention hearing. The court is expected to decide whether to detain her late in the afternoon.

The special counsel team, led by Special Counsel Min Joong-ki, requested an arrest warrant for Kim on Thursday on three charges related to alleged stock manipulation in connection with Deutsch Motors, interference in the nomination of Myung Tae-kyun and solicitation involving Buddhist shaman Geonjin.

The special counsel team said Monday that eight people, including prosecutor Han Moon-hyuk, will attend her pretrial detention hearing without any of the special counsels present.

The team requested an arrest warrant for Kim on Thursday and submitted a 572-page opinion to the Seoul Central District Court outlining the seriousness of the charges and the risk of evidence destruction, in addition to submitting another 276-page opinion, bringing the total to 848 pages.

"At the request of the Seoul Detention Center, we also submitted to the court a petition to change Kim’s place of confinement from the Seoul Detention Center to the Seoul Southern Detention Center until the court rules on the warrant," the team said.

The request has been reportedly made as former President Yoon Suk Yeol is already being held at the Seoul Detention Center at present. Concerns have been raised that detaining the couple at the same facility could cause difficulties in inmate management.

Prosecutors have also reportedly secured an audio recording in which Kim Keon Hee refers to using former anchor Kim Bum-soo’s securities account as a borrowed-name account. In August 2011, Kim Keon Hee allegedly deposited 300 million won ($215,000) into the account and told a Mirae Asset Securities employee in a phone call that day.

Former First Lady Kim Keon Hee arrives at the Seoul Central District Court in southern Seoul, on Aug. 12 to attend a pretrial detention hearing. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

“I put 300 million won in that account. It’s under a borrowed name, so keep that in mind," Kim Keon Hee allegedly says in the recording.

According to prosecutors, she then instructed the purchase of 30 million won in Deutsch Motors shares. Prosecutors believe trades in that account between August and November 2011 generated about 32 million won in profits.

The investigation has also expanded to allegations that Seohee Construction gifted Kim Keon Hee a Van Cleef & Arpels necklace worth about 62 million won, which she wore during a NATO summit trip in 2022. This led prosecutors to raid Seohee Tower, the company’s headquarters in southern Seoul, on Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 1:50 p.m., including the offices of Chairman Lee Bong-kwan, his secretary and the finance and accounting teams, under a search warrant listing bribery charges.

The raid followed findings from an earlier search of a Van Cleef & Arpels store, which showed that Chairman Lee’s secretary, identified only by the surname Choi, had purchased the necklace.

Choi reportedly visited the Lotte Department Store’s Van Cleef outlet with his mother the day after the 2022 presidential election to choose the necklace and returned days later to buy it, using a complex payment method involving the purchase and exchange of department store gift certificates.

Prosecutors are also examining whether the gift is connected to the appointment of Park Seung-keun, Lee’s eldest son-in-law, as chief of staff to the prime minister in the Yoon administration.

The necklace controversy first arose in late August 2022, two months after the NATO trip, when Yoon omitted the necklace from his required disclosure of valuables worth more than 5 million won. The presidential office at the time said Kim had "borrowed the necklace from an acquaintance."

Former First Lady Kim Keon Hee arrives at the Seoul Central District Court in southern Seoul, on Aug. 12 to attend a pretrial detention hearing. [YONHAP]

But during the special counsel team’s investigation, an additional allegation of evidence tampering emerged. This came after a necklace seized on July 25 this year from the mother-in-law of Kim’s older brother was determined to be a fake. Kim told investigators on Aug. 6 that she bought the necklace "in Hong Kong around 2010 as a gift for her mother," but the Snowflake Pendant model was first released in 2015.

The team is also investigating allegations that shaman Jeon Seong-bae, known as Geonjin, operated an illegal presidential campaign office on the second floor of Seohee Tower during the election.

Nicknamed the “Yangjae-dong camp” for its proximity to Yangjae Station, the office allegedly ran pro-Yoon online comment and opinion campaigns before being incorporated into the official network headquarters of Yoon’s election committee after the primary.

Separately, prosecutors are probing claims involving a Vacheron Constantin luxury watch.

During the July 25 raid, they found a watch box and warranty card. They identified the buyer as a businessman surnamed Seo, the former head of a company that supplied robotic dogs to the presidential security service.

“In September 2022, at Kim’s request, I bought a watch worth about 50 million won for 35 million won with her money at the Lotte Department Store in Jamsil using a ‘VIP discount’ and delivered it to her myself," Seo told JoongAng Ilbo.

Updated, Aug. 12: Added details about the investigation

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom staff.
BY LEE CHAN-KYU,SON SUNG-BAE AND YANG SU-MIN [[email protected]]