Shincheonji's Lee Man-hee indicted, W26b seized from Unification Church leader as joint probe wraps up

A joint police-prosecution task force investigating collusion between religion and politics concluded its eight-month probe Monday, announcing indictments of Shincheonji Chairman Lee Man-hee and Unification Church leader Han Hak-ja. The task force said it had confirmed that religious organizations had sought to influence the decision-making of specific political parties and had illegally donated organizational funds as political contributions.

The task force said Monday that it had indicted Lee on June 29 and July 13 on charges of violating the Political Parties Act and obstruction of business. The June indictment — on a detention basis — covered allegations that Shincheonji forced members to join the People Power Party ahead of the 20th presidential election. The July indictment, without detention, covered alleged forced enrollment ahead of the eighth round of local elections, a PPP leadership primary and the 22nd general election.

In connection with the forced PPP enrollment drives tied to the local elections, the party leadership primary and the general election, the task force also indicted in custody Ko Dong-an, a former secretary-general of the Shincheonji General Assembly; a former secretary-general of the John tribe, identified only as A, in connection with the general election; and a former secretary-general of the Simon tribe, identified as B, in connection with the leadership primary and the general election. Four other church members were indicted without detention. All face charges of violating the Political Parties Act and obstruction of business.

Between January and June, the task force conducted searches and seizures at 56 locations — including the Shincheonji General Assembly headquarters, the residences of Lee and other senior officials, and PPP offices — and questioned about 200 people. Investigators concluded that tens of thousands of Shincheonji members had enrolled as party members during specific periods between June 2021 and April 2024, with some doing so against their own free will.

"With the aim of exerting influence over the political sphere to resolve various issues surrounding the chairman and the church, the organization exploited its absolute authority and rigid hierarchical culture to systematically coerce enrollment in a specific party — including issuing membership quotas to each tribe," a task force official said.

The task force also found evidence that Shincheonji had attempted to enroll members in the Democratic Party of Korea. According to the task force, a supporter identified as C, who had been planning to run for Goyang mayor, asked D, a theology department head at a Shincheonji tribal church, in June to sign up church members as Democratic Party members in support of a specific candidate ahead of the ninth round of local elections. Both C and D were indicted without detention on charges of violating the Public Official Election Act.

The task force determined that D, acting on C's request, had encouraged church members to join the Democratic Party between August and September last year, enrolling about 30 people in total — conduct that went beyond the campaign methods permitted under the Public Official Election Act for primary elections.

Investigators believe the enrollment was sought to resolve a pending issue: the tribal church had purchased a warehouse intending to use it as a place of worship, but the local government had refused to approve a change of use. The task force noted, however, that there was no indication that Lee or the General Assembly had directed the Democratic Party enrollment drive.

The task force said it would refer to police the case involving Lee Hee-ja, chairwoman of the Korean Geunwoo Association, who had been identified as a link between Shincheonji and the political establishment.

The task force also uncovered tax evasion allegations against Shincheonji, indicting Lee, a former head of the church's business division and Shincheonji itself. According to the task force, Lee and others are accused of evading a total of 7.57 billion won ($5.5 million) in corporate and value-added taxes between 2016 and 2020 by operating canteens at 70 Shincheonji branch churches nationwide under the names of church members to conceal profit-making activities, and by keeping double sets of books to hide cash revenue.

The case had originally been dismissed without indictment in October 2021 by the Suwon District Prosecutors' Office, which found some charges unsubstantiated on the grounds that the taxpaying obligation rested with individual branch churches rather than the General Assembly, making it difficult to hold the chairman or Shincheonji liable for tax evasion. The Supreme Court in January, however, upheld a ruling against Shincheonji in a lawsuit the church had filed seeking to overturn a corporate tax assessment.

In February, the task force took over the case files from the Suwon prosecutors' office and relaunched the investigation, conducting searches and seizures at the Shincheonji General Assembly headquarters, the 12 tribal churches and the National Tax Service, and questioning 16 people before indicting Lee and others.

The task force said it had confirmed that the church evaded taxes by operating branch church canteens under members' names to conceal profit-making activities and by keeping double sets of accounts to hide cash sales. "We reviewed the case from scratch based on the administrative court ruling, supplemented the facts and established the organized tax evasion," a task force official said.

The task force also indicted Ko, the former secretary-general, on embezzlement charges. Ko is accused of withdrawing 1.91 billion won in cash from Shincheonji church funds under the false pretext of "evangelism expenses" between April 2022 and December 2023, ostensibly to cover legal costs, and then spending the money for personal use.

Ko also faces charges of deceiving the leaders of the 12 tribes into handing over 4.1 billion won in church funds under the guise of construction cost support — after selling a Shincheonji-owned site in December 2023 with a plan to redevelop and repurchase it, but without obtaining the chairman's approval or following proper procedures. He is additionally accused of conspiring with a former Shincheonji member identified as E to use 100 million won from E's company to pay for Shincheonji General Assembly office expenses between September 2020 and February 2024.

On the Unification Church side, former global headquarters chief Yoon Young-ho was indicted along with Song Gwang-seok, former chairman of the church-affiliated International Association of Parliamentarians for Peace, on charges of conspiring to donate 23.7 million won in church funds to 47 politicians, including National Assembly members. Yoon also faces separate charges of conspiring with the former chairman of the church-affiliated Universal Peace Federation to donate 100.2 million won in Unification Church funds to 92 politicians, including lawmakers.

The Korean National Police Agency's National Investigation Headquarters launched a probe into the Unification Church's illegal political funding in December last year and referred Han and others to prosecutors that same month on charges of violating the Political Funds Act. Prosecutors indicted Song and others while requesting supplementary investigation into the rest. The task force subsequently indicted Yoon and others following additional searches and seizures, and sought summary indictments against six individuals.

The task force determined that the Unification Church had used its nationwide organizational network to illegally donate religious funds to politicians in order to cultivate friendly political figures and advance the church founder's theocratic vision of building a nation centered on the Unification Church.

According to the task force, the Unification Church made a total of 219 illegal political donations worth 189 million won in organizational funds to 132 politicians, including National Assembly members, from around March 2019 to around January last year.

Regarding Han, the task force concluded that Jeong Won-ju, Han's chief of staff, Yoon and a former head of the church's central administration had conspired to withdraw about 6 billion won in cash through falsified accounting entries, divert the funds under the pretext of gift expenses and conceal them in Han's personal safe — constituting embezzlement. The task force applied the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes to Han and the others involved.

The task force found that the church's bylaws provided no basis for paying large sums of cash to the chairman or any specific individual, and that the process of converting church funds to cash and concealing them in Han's personal safe involved neither internal procedures nor any confirmation of church members' wishes. Investigators determined that the safe was secretly installed and managed by a single employee, with no expenditure ledger kept for the large sums stored inside.

The task force seized the entire 26 billion won in cash and initiated asset preservation procedures. The Unification Church pushed back Monday, calling the embezzlement charges "an overreach of the law" and saying the funds were "faith offerings voluntarily dedicated to Han by church members and affiliated institutions as an expression of devotion." The church said Han "did not use the funds for private purposes" and that the money "was disbursed for public purposes, including missionary activities, in accordance with the wishes of those who made the offerings."

The task force did, however, decide in April not to refer to prosecutors the case of Busan Mayor Jeon Jae-soo, the former minister of oceans and fisheries, who had been suspected of receiving expensive watches and other gifts from the Unification Church around 2018, citing an expired statute of limitations on some charges and insufficient evidence on others. Former Democratic Party lawmaker Lim Jong-seong and former United Future Party lawmaker Kim Gyu-hwan, who had also faced gift-receipt allegations, were cleared of charges.

"Shincheonji's organized forced-enrollment scheme is a grave crime that shakes the constitutional principle of separation of religion and politics and the very foundation of democracy," a task force official said. "Our investigation confirmed the reality of religion-politics collusion, in which a religious organization used its large-scale organizational power to influence the decision-making of a specific political party — a first-of-its-kind case."

The official added that the investigation had also confirmed that the Unification Church "recruited numerous politicians for related events and illegally donated 189 million won in organizational funds to a total of 132 politicians from 2019 to 2025 in order to cultivate a friendly political base and realize the founder and leader's theocratic ideology."