Hundreds of audio files of Kim Keon Hee secured in Deutsch Motors stock manipulation probe
Kim Keon Hee, wife of former President Yoon Suk Yeol, exits a polling booth after casting her vote at a polling station in Seocho District, Seoul, during the snap presidential election on June 3. Yonhap
Prosecutors have obtained hundreds of audio recordings of Kim Keon Hee, the wife of former President Yoon Suk Yeol, as part of a renewed investigation into allegations that she conspired in a stock manipulation scheme involving Deutsch Motors.
The recordings are said to contain indications that Kim was aware her account was being used in the scheme, potentially providing key evidence for a forthcoming special counsel investigation.
The Seoul High Prosecutors’ Office, which reopened the Deutsch Motors case in April, recently secured the recordings during a raid on Mirae Asset Securities.
The files include some three years’ worth of conversations between Kim and a securities firm employee who managed her account, dating from October 2010 to December 2012, a period prosecutors identify as the second phase of the alleged stock manipulation.
Analysts reviewing the recordings say Kim appears to acknowledge that her account was being used in coordinated trading activity.
In the tapes, she is reportedly heard saying, “I entrusted the account to Blackpearl Invest and need to give them 40 percent of the profits,” and complaining that the account manager is demanding an excessive cut.
Her remarks closely resemble earlier testimony from the account manager, identified as Lee, the primary orchestrator of the scheme who told prosecutors that former Deutsch Motors Chairman Kwon Oh-soo had promised him 30 to 40 percent of Kim’s profits, a claim now seemingly corroborated by Kim’s own voice.
Some of the recordings also capture Kim reviewing specific documents with the employee, which are said to match materials obtained in 2022 during an earlier raid of Blackpearl Invest.
That file, known colloquially as the “Kim Keon Hee file,” contained a spreadsheet of trading activity under Kim’s name, including withdrawals and balances during the alleged price rigging period. At the time, prosecutors failed to link the document directly to Kim through testimony or other evidence.
Prosecutors issued a second summons to Kim on Monday, asking her to appear for questioning by next week.
Last October, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office had cleared Kim of wrongdoing, citing insufficient evidence and testimony to support the charge that she knowingly participated in price manipulation, concluding she acted merely as a “front investor.”
The Deutsch Motors case has since become a central focus of the special counsel probe into Kim’s alleged misconduct, with mounting public attention on whether new evidence will shift legal conclusions.
This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI and edited by The Korea Times.