South Korea’s former first girl 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 girl, Kim Keon Hee, on expenses of bribery and market manipulation.
She was indicted for amassing over 1 billion received (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 crew, translated by CNBC.
This features a inventory manipulation scheme between 2010 and 2012, leading to illicit income of over 810 million received.
Kim is the spouse of former President Yoon Suk Yeol whose short-lived martial regulation in December 2024 led to his impeachment and elimination from workplace earlier this yr. He was arrested and faces expenses of rebellion over his martial regulation bid, which carries a most penalty of dying.
Kim allegedly additionally conspired with Yoon to obtain 270 million received value of opinion polls knowledge without spending a dime from round June 2021 to round March 2022, in keeping with the authorities. She is also accused of acquiring 80 million received in bribes and valuables from the Unification Church in 2022, in return for her help 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 embrace “abetting the ringleader of an rebellion, perjury, falsifying and destroying official paperwork, and different offenses.”
These expenses come as President Lee Jae Myung reportedly permitted laws again in June for investigations into Yoon’s martial regulation bid, in addition to probes into Kim and different allegations in opposition to 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 army base and bought info.”
Earlier than his assembly with Lee, Trump had posted on Fact Social, saying “WHAT IS GOING ON IN SOUTH KOREA? Looks like a Purge or Revolution. We won’t have that and do enterprise there,” though he didn’t reference any particular occasion.
The U.S. president later softened his stance throughout the assembly with Lee, saying that “I am certain it is a misunderstanding.”
— CNBC’s Blair Baek contributed to this report.
