Photo : YONHAP News
The prosecution has decided not to indict first lady Kim Keon-hee in connection with a Deutsch Motors stock manipulation scheme.
The decision came Thursday, about four and a half years after a Democratic Party satellite group filed a complaint against Kim in April 2020.
The prosecution decided that Kim was unaware of any stock price manipulation activities when she entrusted the management of her account to former Deutsch Motors Chairman Kwon Oh-soo.
Deutsch Motors, an official dealer of BMW cars in South Korea, was at the center of controversy over the organized manipulation of its stock prices between 2009 and 2012.
Kwon and several others have been convicted of financial crimes in the case, and Kim was suspected of having abetted their crimes as a financier.
The prosecution decided that there was insufficient evidence to prove that Kim knew her account was being used to manipulate stock prices, or that she knowingly traded stocks dishonestly in collusion with Kwon.