Senior prosecutor Jin arrested on bribery charges

By Chung Hyun-chae

Jin Kyung-joon

Prosecutors arrested senior prosecutor Jin Kyung-joon, 49, Thursday, on charges of taking bribes after he was questioned over his suspicious gains in trading his Nexon shares of stock and the alleged granting of favors to the game company.

“We concluded that there was a high possibility that Jin could contact Nexon Chairman Kim Jung-ju to distort or destroy key evidence in the investigation,” a prosecutor said.

Jin is accused of illicitly making 12.6 billion won last year through selling shares of Nexon, the nation’s leading online game maker.

Jin is also charged with receiving a Genesis luxury sedan priced at around 40 to 50 million won from the game company in the name of his brother-in-law in 2008.

Prosecutors regarded these acts as bribery.

The prosecution summoned Jin earlier in the same day for questioning.

Jin submitted a document admitting some of the allegations to the investigating team a day before he was summoned.

There have been similar cases in which senior prosecutors have been arrested. They include former senior prosecutor Jin Hyung-gu, who was arrested on charges of leading a strike of the labor union at the Korea Minting, Security Printing and ID Card Operating Corp. in 1999, and Kim Soo-chang, former chief Jeju prosecutor, who resigned after admitting to performing acts of lewd behavior in public in 2014.