South Korean ‘Coin Gate’ lawmaker cleared of all charges

The former South Korean legislator known for the Gate corner scandal, Kim Nam-Guk, was declared “not guilty” of all the court accusations.

According to a report From local Media News1, a judge of the district court in the south of Seoul declared Kim “not guilty” of all the accusations during his first trial. Kim was accused of having distorted his assets in the National Assembly in his attempt to hide the important profit he achieved from cryptocurrency before changes in the law of cryptography. This news was known to the public under the name of “Coin Gate” scandal.

Kim’s position as South Korean The government official has given him initiate information on a future crypto bill This would oblige citizens to report Crypto funds in the context of their wealth.

The prosecutors alleged that Kim had sold his cryptographic participations and transferred the Fiat to a bank account with the amount corresponding to its total wealth in crypto. Thus, they accused him of having “obstructed those responsible for the exercise of their functions” because of the unfair advantage that his position gave him with regard to his asset reports in 2021 and 2022.

In the light of the accusations, judge Jeong Woo-Yong said that there was “no evidence of a crime” linked to the case of Kim. The judge also explained that at the time the cryptographic assets “were not subject to declarations”. Consequently, Kim was not forced to declare his cryptographic assets.

Although the judge has recognized that some of the details provided by Kim about his crypto participations were “insufficient or inaccurate”, he declared that it was difficult to govern inaccuracies such as the obstruction of the official exercise exercising their functions in the eyes of the ethics committee of the Ethics Committee.

“Given the circumstances recognized by the evidence studied above, it is insufficient to consider it as an obstruction of official functions by the hierarchy,” said Jeong.

In December 2024, prosecutors brought Kim to court, hoping to imprison Kim for six months for having allegedly hampered the functions of the National Assembly Council.

According to the report, Kim said that his total assets was worth around 1.2 billion won ($ 825,526). The accusation allegedly alleged that Kim’s Crypto Holdings amounted to $ 9.9 billion or more than $ 6.8 million at the time of the 2021 asset declaration process.