Prosecutors have raided locations linked to a former head of the National Union of Media Workers, in their investigation of allegations that Kim Man-bae, a key figure in the Seongnam development scandal, gave a false media interview trying to influence last year's presidential election. 

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office on Friday sent prosecutors and investigators to the home of the former union head, Shin Hak-lim, and other locations to obtain related evidence.

Shin is suspected of conducting the false interview upon Kim's request, in the form of a phone call recording in September 2021.

The recording was released in March 2022, when President Yoon Suk Yeol was running for office, and in the recording Kim alleged that Yoon had colluded in an illegal loan scheme in 2011 when he was a prosecutor.

The 2011 scandal involved a broker, Cho Woo-hyung, who took out an illegal loan from Busan Savings Bank to prepare funds for the development project in Seongnam's Daejang-dong area.

Kim claimed that he had introduced Cho to Yoon, who was then working at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, through special prosecutor Park Young-soo, and that Yoon deliberately kept silent about allegations surrounding Cho after a meeting over coffee. Park has since been indicted for taking bribes from key figures in the scandal.

Prosecutors reportedly suspect that Shin had accepted hundreds of millions of won in bribes from Kim, in return for conducting the interview.