The Traces Han Dong-hoon Has Left on South Korea

The Revival of the Joint Securities Crime Investigation Team and the Shield for Ordinary People

The Revival of the Joint Securities Crime Investigation Team

Yeouido's Grim Reaper Returns: Han Dong-hoon Restores the Shield for Ordinary People on His First Day in Office

On the afternoon of May 17, 2022, in the auditorium of the Ministry of Justice at the government complex in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, Han Dong-hoon was reading his inauguration address as the 69th Minister of Justice. At 49 years old, he was the youngest prosecutor-turned-minister in Korean constitutional history. He was appointed without a confirmation report adopted, and the opposition party with 180 seats was targeting him. The tone of his inauguration address was measured, but the first action it contained was swift and decisive.

We must urgently examine the state of economic crimes that victimize ordinary people and respond swiftly. I will take the first step by reviving the 'Joint Securities Crime Investigation Team' today, immediately.

The words 'today, immediately' deserve emphasis. This was not mere rhetoric typical of ministerial inauguration ceremonies. Indeed, the very next day, May 18, the 'Financial and Securities Crime Joint Investigation Team' was officially established at the Seoul Southern District Prosecutor's Office. The organization was operational just one day after the announcement.

The One Who Dismantled It, The One Who Revived It

We must first examine the history of this organization.

The Joint Securities Crime Investigation Team was created in May 2013 under the Park Geun-hye administration. Initially established at the Seoul Central District Prosecutor's Office, it was relocated to the Seoul Southern District Prosecutor's Office the following year to improve access to information from the securities industry. Specialized personnel from related agencies such as the Financial Supervisory Service, the National Tax Service, and the Korea Exchange worked alongside prosecutors in a shared office. As the name 'joint investigation' indicated, it was an organization that combined the prosecution's investigative capacity with the financial sector's expertise.

Results came immediately. Within seven months of its launch, it referred 126 cases to trial and recovered 24 billion won in illegal proceeds. In a single year, it handled nearly one hundred cases, earning the nickname 'Yeouido's Grim Reaper.' It was the only permanent investigative agency exclusively handling crimes that corroded the capital market: stock price manipulation, market rigging, insider trading, and irregular disclosures.

Yet this organization disappeared in January 2020. Then-Justice Minister Choo Mi-ae abolished thirteen prosecution investigative divisions, eliminating the Securities Crime Joint Investigation Team among them. The policy was to reduce the prosecution's direct investigative capacity under the banner of 'prosecutor reform.'

What happened after the joint team disappeared? The Lime Asset Management scandal erupted. The Optimus Fund fraud case broke. Allegations of Shinrazen stock price manipulation surfaced. Trillions of won in financial crimes emerged in succession, but the dedicated investigative organization had already been disbanded. Revival of the joint team gained traction, but former Minister Choo drew a line.

Two years and four months passed. During that time, ordinary investors lost hundreds of billions of won to Lime and Optimus. Stock manipulation groups roamed the securities market freely, now that the dedicated investigative organization had vanished.

A Forty-Eight-Member Elite Unit

The organization Han Dong-hoon revived was larger than before. It comprised a total of 48 members: prosecutors and staff from the Financial Supervisory Service and other related agencies. It was larger than the previous joint team of 47 or the investigation cooperation unit that had operated in the interim with 46 members.

Elite personnel from the National Tax Service were dispatched, along with officials from the Financial Services Commission, the Financial Supervisory Service, and the Korea Exchange. The prosecution's power of coercive investigation, the tax service's capacity for fund tracing, the financial authority's expertise in market surveillance, and the exchange's ability to analyze transaction data all converged under one roof.

To understand why this matters, one must grasp the nature of financial crime. Stock manipulators mobilize dozens of nominee accounts. They establish overseas shell companies, construct complex derivative structures, and deceive investors through false disclosures. Investigating such crimes requires experts who understand how financial markets operate, tax specialists who trace fund flows, and data analysts who identify trading patterns, all sitting alongside prosecutors and exchanging information in real time.

It is not that a general prosecution investigative unit cannot do this work. But the difference between an organization with specialized personnel permanently integrated, like the joint team, and the method of sending cooperation letters to various agencies each time a case emerges is like heaven and earth in terms of speed and depth.

The Minister's Will, The Organization's Expansion

Han Dong-hoon did not stop at reviving the joint team. He expanded the specialized joint investigation model that began in the financial and securities sector to other areas.

He established a new National Finance Crime Joint Investigation Team. It is an organization dedicated to handling crimes that eat away at public taxes: subsidy fraud, public procurement corruption, and embezzlement of national budgets.

He also established a Voice Phishing Joint Investigation Team. The joint team installed at the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutor's Office achieved results in five months of operation: it arrested 111 individuals, including 20 leaders of voice phishing organizations and 78 mid-level operatives. Voice phishing is a crime that causes damage in the hundreds of billions of won each year, literally victimizing ordinary people.

Three joint investigation teams now stand side by side. Stock manipulators on Yeouido, financial criminals who siphon government budgets, voice phishing organizations targeting the elderly and young workers. The frontline of 'economic crimes victimizing ordinary people' that Han Dong-hoon mentioned in his inauguration address thus unfolded in three directions.

The Philosophy in His Inauguration Address

It is worth revisiting Han Dong-hoon's inauguration address. He defined it this way: 'True prosecutor reform, true criminal justice system reform, is building a fair system that can conduct rigorous investigations even against the socially powerful.'

His investigative philosophy is compressed in this sentence. At that time, the word 'prosecutor reform' was being used almost synonymously with 'limiting the prosecution's investigative authority' in political circles. Han Dong-hoon directly inverted that frame. He declared that prosecutor reform is not about weakening the prosecution, but about establishing an investigative system that does not waver even before the powerful.

We must not become a society where people are afraid to walk at night, where gangs roam freely, where ordinary people suffer harm yet choose to endure it in silence.

Immediately after these words, the revival of the joint team was announced. The first statement was backed not by abstract values but by concrete action. Strong against the strong, warm toward the weak. The principle he had maintained since his days as a prosecutor was fully evident in the minister's first moves.

What Two Years and Four Months of Vacancy Left Behind

Looking back at what unfolded in South Korea's capital market during the two years and four months when Yeouido's Grim Reaper was absent, one can see how great the cost of dismantling the joint team was.

The Lime Asset Management scandal caused investor losses of approximately 1.6 trillion won. The Optimus Fund fraud made approximately 500 billion won vanish. A substantial portion of this money belonged to middle-aged and older investors who had entrusted their retirement savings, and ordinary investors trying to grow their capital.

Could the joint team have prevented all this damage? We cannot know. But the mere fact that a dedicated investigative organization was monitoring Yeouido would have served as a crime deterrent. Yeouido, once the Grim Reaper departed, was for criminals no different from an empty house.

Han Dong-hoon locked that empty house again. And he did it on his first day in office, in just one day. What a minister can accomplish on the first day of office is ordinarily symbolic. But Han Dong-hoon's first day was not symbolism but execution. Before the ink on his inauguration address had even dried, 48 investigators had taken their places at the Seoul Southern District Prosecutor's Office.