A second senior official from Korea Land and Housing Corp (LH) was found dead in Paju, north of Seoul, in an apparent suicide amid a growing insider property speculation scandal, an officer from the Paju Police Station said.
Yonhap news agency had reported the death earlier yesterday and had said the LH official did not appear to be a subject of a probe into the accusations of insider speculation by dozens of employees of the state housing corporation.
This is the second death of an LH official since the South Korean government this week declared war on property crime.
The other official was found dead on Friday, also of an apparent suicide. He had left a letter saying he was sorry for doing “undesirable things” when he headed LH’s office in the province of North Jeolla, Yonhap had reported.
According to an initial investigation into the scandal, at least 20 LH employees are suspected of trying to use classified knowledge to buy undeveloped land before new development projects were slated to begin in the areas, South Korean Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said on Thursday.
Criticizing the sluggish progress of the probe, the main opposition People Party has demanded an investigation led by prosecutors to ensure a speedy and thorough process.
The scandal has sparked outrage in South Korea as property prices in and around Seoul have soared, making affordable housing hard to find.
The South Korean Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Byeon Chang-heum has offered to resign over the scandal.
Although he has not been implicated personally, Byeon was head of LH from April 2019 until December last year.
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
Cambodia’s government on Wednesday said that it had arrested and extradited to China a tycoon who has been accused of running a huge online scam operation. The Cambodian Ministry of the Interior said that Prince Holding Group chairman Chen Zhi (陳志) and two other Chinese citizens were arrested and extradited on Tuesday at the request of Chinese authorities. Chen formerly had dual nationality, but his Cambodian citizenship was revoked last month, the ministry said. US prosecutors in October last year brought conspiracy charges against Chen, alleging that he had been the mastermind behind a multinational cyberfraud network, used his other businesses to launder
RSS