A South Korean member of parliament quits his party amid growing allegations of massive crypto investments inconsistent with his frugal public image. The controversy, which has caught the attention of Korean society, involves accusations of conflict of interest and other improprieties.
Lawmaker quits South Korean opposition party over Crypto Holdings
Kim Nam-kuk, a representative in the South Korean National Assembly, has announced that he will quit his political faction amid a growing scandal surrounding his alleged cryptocurrency transactions. In a Facebook post on Sunday, he wrote:
Today, I am briefly leaving the Democratic Party that I love. I decided that it would no longer be fair to be a burden on the party and its members.
Kim has come under scrutiny after revelations that he owned around 800,000 Wemix plays in 2021, Yonhap reported. At the time, the digital assets were worth around 6 billion won ($4.5 million), “a significant amount inconsistent with its frugal image”, the news agency noted.
On Wednesday, the Democratic Party of Korea, the main opposition force in parliament, urged Kim to sell the assets, a call the first-term lawmaker accepted. The party’s ethics committee has launched an investigation into his coin business which has now been suspended.
Korean lawmaker suspected of conflict of interest and insider trading
The South Korean politician reportedly withdrew all of his coins last March, before the so-called ‘travel rule‘ in the country. It requires crypto exchanges to report personal information about crypto owners when an amount transferred exceeds 1 million won.
Critics have pointed out that Kim Nam-kuk’s crypto holdings could pose a conflict of interest as he was one of the sponsors of a bill proposing to delay the taxation of income from virtual assets until July 2021. It was about six months before he retired his coins, Yonhap revealed in a previous report this week.
While Kim maintained that no irregularities were involved in his transactions and disclosed some of his transaction data, Korean media also highlighted suspicions about the source of the money for his crypto investments and that he allegedly used privileged information.
“I believe that I should cause no harm to the party at this important moment,” he also said on Sunday, while promising to “stand up against the unjust political offensive to the end and find out the truth.” Kim further noted that as an independent lawmaker, he would demand legal accountability for media reports that he says are based on false facts.
What do you think of the South Korean politician’s crypto investment case? Tell us in the comments section below.
Image credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, Kim Nam-kuk
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