Seoul mayor scrutinizes whether predecessor tried to evade UN sanctions to help North Korea via cryptocurrency

The Korea Times

The Korea Times

National

Tue, September 26, 2023 | 08:28

Politics

Seoul mayor scrutinizes whether predecessor tried to evade UN sanctions to help North Korea via cryptocurrency

Posted : 2022-10-12 16:25

Updated : 2022-10-12 16:26

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon answers questions during the National Assembly audit of the city government at the city hall, central Seoul, Wednesday. Yonhap

By Kang Hyun-kyung

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon said on Wednesday that he would thoroughly look into the allegation that his predecessor, late former Mayor Park Won-soon, tried to evade sanctions to help North Korea build a cryptocurrency research center there. Park was found dead at Mount Bugak on July 10, hours after he vanished.

If any violations are found, Oh said he will request the law enforcement authorities to investigate the case.

"As of now, I have no information about to what extent the city government was involved in the cryptocurrency project during the former mayor's leadership period," Oh said during the National Assembly audit of the city government, adding that he came to know about the city government's alleged involvement in the project through media reports on the National Assembly audit of the Ministry of Justice.

"I was told that in the city government, there were no working-level staff who contacted North Korea for the crytocurrency project though," Oh said.

Former Mayor Park's involvement in the cryptocurrency project in North Korea became known to the public after Rep. Kim Eui-kyum of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) made public emails exchanged in 2018 between now jailed U.S. cryptocurrency expert Virgil Griffith and his business partner based in Seoul. In the emails, then Mayor Park and then Seongnam Mayor Lee Jae-myung were mentioned as two of the politicians who had expressed their interest in cryptocurrency.

Griffith's Korean business partner wrote in an email on June 29, 2019: "The Seoul City government is open to providing support to the Ethereum Foundation, but we are in the process of discussing how to provide such support. During the conversation, supporting an Ethereum research center and setting up an institution in the DPRK came up. So it is not a 100% confirmed offer, but we are trying to make it happen."

Rep. Kim alleged that Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon visited the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Southern District of New York in early July to dig up information on the alleged involvement of former Mayor Park and now DPK leader Lee Jae-myung in the Etherreum research center project in North Korea. Minister Han has not confirmed this.

Rep. Cho Eun-hee of the ruling People Power Party revisited the allegation on Wednesday during the National Assembly audit on the Seoul Metropolitan Government.

If the allegation is true, the lawmaker claimed, what the former Seoul mayor tried to do is in violation of the U.N. sanctions on North Korea.

"We need to check if there had been any sort of conversation about the cryptocurrency project in North Korea among high-ranking Seoul city officials, particularly those who were involved in blockchain affairs. And if any irregularities were found, the city authorities must ask for police or other law enforcement agencies to conduct an investigation," she said.

Rep. Cho also called for a thorough investigation into how inter-Korean cooperation funds were used when then Mayor Park was in office.

"After President Moon Jae-in took office, then Mayor Park approved the dispersion of 24.2 billion won of the funds, of which the total value is 15 times more than the total funds that had been spent during the previous five years before Moon," she said, urging Mayor Oh to order an investigation of how the money was spent.

Oh responded that the city government has already launched an audit of the funds including how they were spent, and the investigation is underway, saying he will take appropriate measures once the audit results are available.

hkang@koreatimes.co.kr