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According to Yonhap News Agency on the 21st, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office said on the same day that it had summoned South Korea's "First Lady" Kim Gun-hee on the 20th for a non-public investigation into her suspected manipulation of Deutsche Auto's stock price and violation of the Anti-Corruption Law by accepting brand-name bags.

For safety reasons, the two sides agreed to conduct the investigation at a third location other than the prosecutor's office building in Seocho-dong, Seoul. The investigation began at 13:30 on the 20th and lasted until 1:20 in the morning on the 20th, a total of 12 hours.

Image source: European News Agency

According to previous reports by South Korean media, Kim Gun-hee and his family members were suspected of manipulating the share price of Deutsche Automotive, a distributor of BMW in South Korea, between 2009 and 2012. They were also suspected of violating the "Law on Prohibition of Accepting Improper Requests and Property" (Anti-Corruption Law) and accepting a brand-name bag worth about 3 million won (about 16,000 yuan) from Choi Jae-young, a Korean pastor living in the United States, in September 2022. The opposition party asked South Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol to explain this, but Yoon Seok-yeol and Kim Gun-hee initially remained silent on the matter. It was not until more than two months after the incident was exposed that Yoon Seok-yeol spoke for the first time, insisting that this was a carefully planned "political conspiracy."

Previously, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, which was responsible for investigating the "Kim Kun-hee's acceptance of designer bags incident," had issued a notice to South Korea's "First Lady" Kim Kun-hee, requiring her to hand over the designer bags she had previously accepted.

Kim Gun-hee accepts the Dior bag Choi Jae-young gave her. Source: Sing Tao Global

It is reported that regarding the suspected stock price manipulation case, the Seoul prosecutors are focusing on investigating whether Kim Gun-hee knew that her account was used to manipulate stock price transactions. Regarding the case of receiving the brand-name bags, the prosecutors mainly want to know the process of Kim Gun-hee receiving the brand-name bags and whether it is related to her work.

In response to being summoned for a 12-hour investigation, Kim Gun-hee's appointed lawyer Choi Ji-woo said that Kim Gun-hee "faithfully participated in the investigation and told the truth."

Source: Yonhap News Agency, China Times News Network