The people involved in the development project in Daejang-dong, Seongnam tried to win over Seongnam City Council members to vote for Choi Yoon-gil (center of photo), a council member at the time, when selecting the council’s chairperson in 2012. At the time, Choi had lost in the Saenuri Party (current People Power Party) primary, but still ran for chair, changing his registered party. This raised allegations that perhaps the Daejang-dong figures were behind Choi’s victory in the election for council chair.

After Choi was elected chair of the Seongnam City Council, he actively promoted the establishment of the Seongnam Development Corporation, and since last year, he has been serving as vice chairman of Hwacheon Daeyu, which led the Daejang-dong development project. The police recently opened another investigation into all allegations linked to Choi.

According to the coverage by the Kyunghyang Shinmun on November 3, the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency, which investigated the bribery allegations concerning Choi in 2014, obtained a recording of Gim, Choi’s close aide, explaining to A, one of the private developers in Daejang-dong, a plan on how to get Choi elected as chair of the city council. Since Choi was busy with council schedules, Gim took his place and often met with Lee Kang-gil, the CEO of Ssisebeun, and accountant Jeong Young-hak--the men involved in the early stages of the Daejang-dong project--and shared information on the project’s progress.

In the recording that the police obtained, Gim said, “We’ve agreed with the Daejang-dong developers to cooperate with the Democratic United Party (current Democratic Party of Korea) in policies in exchange for making Choi chair, and the Democratic Party also agreed to support Choi, so just wait.” Gim also said, “Two people, Democratic Party councilman B and Saenuri Party councilman C, agreed to help us.” The police summoned Choi and played the recording. They asked Choi if it was true that Gim helped him, but Choi said, “No such thing ever took place, and I don’t know why Gim said that.”

At the time of the election for the Seongnam City Council chair in 2012, Choi had lost in the Saenuri Party primary, but refused to accept the outcome. He made a bid for chair and was elected with support from the Democratic Party council members. Later Choi led efforts to get the city council to agree to establishing the Seongnam Development Corporation. In a document stating the criminal charges of Yoo Dong-gyu, former director of planning at Seongnam Development Corporation, Yoo promised Jeong Young-hak and attorney Nam Wook to give them rights to the project if they helped him establish the Seongnam Development Corporation. For the people involved in the Daejang-dong development project, they had to get Choi elected as city council chair and establish the Seongnam Development Corporation by all means. The public-private joint development of Daejang-dong was promoted at the end of September 2013, shortly after the corporation was established.

At the time, the police investigated allegations that Choi received bribes of 120 million won and golf clubs valued at 2.8 million won from the people involved in the initial stages of the Daejang-dong development at the time of the local elections in June 2010. Choi had received 100 million won from Lee Kang-gil to purchase a new car, and 20 million won for election funds. But Lee’s partner, who was to deliver the money, and Choi denied the charges, and the prosecutors dropped the case due to insufficient evidence.

The Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency, which is reinvestigating the alleged corruption surrounding Daejang-dong, recently began looking into the bribery charges against Choi again. The police are checking to see if Choi was further involved in the Daejang-dong project from 2014, when he stepped down as chair of the city council, until he became the vice chairman of Hwacheon Daeyu last year.