General Moon Moo-il, named South Korea’s prosecutor general last year, has denied claims of influence peddling in the case of alleged illegal hiring practices at Kangwon Land Casino.
According to the Korea Herald, last week an independent investigation team looking into the matter accused Moon and other officials of trying to thwart the probe and keep officers from arresting Rep. Kweon Seong-dong of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party, who has been implicated in the case.
The Kangwon Land Casino scandal first made news in February 2016, when an internal probe revealed that, between 2012 and 2013, 95 percent of more than 500 new hires were made based on who the employees knew. Two lawmakers from the Liberty Korea Party, Rep. Kweon and Rep. Yeom Dong-yeol, allegedly used their power to get relatives of their acquaintances hired by the casino, which is located in their constituencies in Gangwon Province.
In late 2017, former company President Choi Heung-jip and a Yeom political aide were indicted in the case. The latest investigation, which began last February, came after Prosecutor Ahn Mi-hyun revealed that she was pressured by the head of the regional prosecution to close the case on Kangwon Land Casino. She was transferred from the Chuncheon District Prosecutor’s Office to the Uijeongbu branch in Gyeonggi Province in 2018.
When Moon Moo-il was named prosecutor general in July 2017, presidential spokesman Park Soo-hyun called him “meticulous and principled, yet gentle. The prosecutors deeply trust him. We have anticipation that he will stabilize the prosecution quickly and succeed in reforming the organization.”
