Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon speaks during a National Assembly audit on the Ministry of Justice, Oct. 6. Yonhap

DPK lawmaker accuses justice minister of looking into opposition bigwigs' alleged links with North Korea, cryptocurrency

By Kang Hyun-kyung

Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon's visit to New York three months ago is belatedly rekindling the interest of some members of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK). They claimed that the primary purpose of Han's visit was to investigate if there were any unlawful acts allegedly committed by President Yoon Suk-yeol's political opponents.

DPK lawmaker Kim Eui-kyeom claimed during a radio interview on Sunday that Han's nine-day business trip to New York starting June 29 seems to have been related to the prosecution's investigation into several politicians, including Rep. Lee Jae-myung, the current DPK leader.

During his U.S. trip, Rep. Kim claimed that Han visited the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York to find further details of the investigation results into now-jailed U.S. cryptocurrency expert Virgil Griffith.

Griffith is currently in jail after being sentenced earlier this year to more than five years behind bars and fined $100,000 after pleading guilty to conspiring to help North Korea evade U.S. sanctions using cryptocurrency. In April 2019, Griffith traveled to North Korea to speak at the Pyongyang Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference. He went ahead with the trip even though the U.S. Department of State did not give him permission.

According to the DPK lawmaker, the New York district attorney's office submitted an email correspondence between Griffith and an unnamed person based in South Korea to a New York court as evidence to support their claim that the cryptocurrency expert was guilty.

Kim went on to say that the emails contained a claim that the mayors of Seoul and Seongnam were interested in building a cryptocurrency infrastructure in their cities. The Seoul mayor referenced in the email was Park Won-soon and the Seongnam mayor is the current DPK leader.

According to the DPK lawmaker, Han went to New York to see if there are other documents that can show those politicians' possible links with North Korea's attempt to build a cryptocurrency infrastructure to evade international sanctions.

"Those emails have the names of several politicians, including then Seongnam Mayor Lee and Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon and several lawmakers," Rep. Kim said.

According to him, Minister Han might have wanted to see if there were any links between those politicians and North Korea and its cryptocurrency project, and if such links really existed, he might have wanted to launch an investigation into them.

The justice minister neither confirmed nor denied the allegation. In a statement released on Sunday, he said, "If any South Korean politicians are involved in North Korea-related cryptocurrency crimes as Rep. Kim implicated, this means they are punishable."

He added, "I wonder what Rep. Kim's motives with his remarks are. Is he openly reporting a criminal case or is he trying to be a whistleblower? Or is he trying to give the prosecution investigation guidelines?"

Earlier this week, Kim raised allegations that Han had visited the U.S. as part of his plan to purge Yoon's political rivals.

Disclosing an email correspondence between Griffith and a woman named Erica Kang on June 29, 2018, during a National Assembly audit of the Ministry of Justice, Rep. Kim said it is part of some 50 to 60 pages of documents he obtained from sources. "While reading this email correspondence, I thought Minister Han would have been intrigued because of the names of two politicians, the mayors of Seoul and Seongnam. I thought he would probably have loved to know more about their possible connections," he said.

Han dismissed Kim's claim, stating what Rep. Kim obtained is part of open source information.