A group of individuals, including the head of an investment advisory firm and six journalists, have been indicted for allegedly exploiting feature articles in the stock market to gain unjust profits amounting to billions of won.
On July 29, the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office's Financial Investigation Division 2 announced that it has charged a total of eight people, including one accountant and six journalists, with violations of the Capital Markets Act, breach of trust, and violations of the Anti-Corruption Act. Four of the defendants have been detained, while the other four were charged without detention.
Specifically, the prosecutor's office charged the accountant, identified as A, along with five journalists and one investor, with violations of the Capital Markets Act and breach of trust. Journalist B, who directly engaged in insider trading using feature articles, was charged with violations of the Capital Markets Act and the Act on the Regulation of Criminal Proceeds Concealment.
According to the investigation, the main perpetrator, accountant A, collaborated with journalists he was familiar with to select small-cap or thematic stocks with low trading volumes and high volatility. He drafted feature articles, which were then distributed by the journalists in the form of press releases or articles.
Before the articles were published, they purchased the targeted stocks (insider trading) and sold them for profit once the stock prices surged due to increased buying from ordinary investors who accessed the information through home trading systems or portals.
From October 2020 to June 2025, A and his accomplices utilized over 1,800 feature articles to gain approximately 8.55 billion won in unjust profits, with A himself reportedly pocketing around 7.13 billion won.
During this process, covert monetary transactions also took place. A allegedly paid journalists about 300,000 won per article to participate in the scheme. Further investigations revealed that A and a key contact, journalist B, paid approximately 150 million won to journalist E as compensation for distributing articles. Other journalists received payments of 116 million won and 28 million won, totaling nearly 300 million won in bribes.
Notably, A employed various methods to evade detection by law enforcement, including providing journalists with debit cards for cash withdrawals and hiding cash in gym lockers.
Additionally, journalist H, who had the authority to distribute feature articles, reportedly committed solo offenses. From October 2022 to July 2024, H sent out a total of 340 articles, profiting 740 million won by selling pre-purchased stocks. H was also found to have used a proxy account under a friend's name to avoid detection by financial authorities.
This investigation was conducted through close cooperation between the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office and the Financial Supervisory Service's Special Judicial Police for Capital Markets. The Financial Supervisory Service analyzed extensive account and trading data to uncover additional offenses, leading to the arrest of key figures, including journalist B and journalist E, who received bribes.
Furthermore, the prosecutors' asset recovery unit is tracking down signs of asset concealment, as defendants attempted to sell real estate and reacquire it under their spouses' names to evade asset forfeiture. They have frozen related real estate and financial assets.
A prosecutor stated, "We will continue to work closely with the Financial Supervisory Service to respond strictly to financial and securities crimes that disrupt the stock market, striving for the normalization of irregularities."
* This article has been translated by AI.
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