Changwon city council member sent to city hall on suspicion of receiving 450 million won for apartment construction contract

The police handed over Cho Eun-woo, a city councilor in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province, to the Public Prosecution Office on charges of receiving 450 million won from a company in return for a construction contract while he was president of the Apartment Residents' Representative Association.

Masan Central Police Station announced on the 7th that it had sent Rep. Cho to the Masan Branch of the Changwon Regional Public Prosecutors' Office without detention in the middle of last month on charges of breach of trust.

Rep. Cho is accused of receiving a request related to an underground parking lot painting construction contract and receiving money from the company about eight times between February and October 2024, when he was the chairman of the Wolyeong Marine Asian Apartment Residents' Representative Association in Masan Happo-gu, Changwon-si.

The police believed that the company requested by Rep. Cho was in charge of the construction, and that Rep. Cho was involved in selecting the company.

The police also forwarded Mr. A, a 70-year-old employee of the construction company who gave money to Rep. Cho, on charges of breach of trust.

The three people involved in handing over the money and the two people involved in receiving it were also handed over to the Public Prosecution Office on charges of aiding and abetting breach of trust and aiding and abetting breach of trust, respectively.

The police began an investigation after receiving a complaint from a civic group last July. During the investigation, an application was made to collect and preserve the money found to have been received by Rep. Cho, and the court accepted this request.

Representative Cho left his political party, the Democratic Party of Korea, on July 28 after the complaint. At the time, he said, “Because I was in a situation where I was accused, I decided it would be better to be investigated without party affiliation, so I left the party.”

Last September, residents of this apartment held a press conference in front of the Changwon City Council to clarify the suspicions and call for an ethics review at the city council level.