13 million won in survivors’ pension received by Lee Eun-hae in the ‘Gapyeong Valley murder’ case still unrecovered

[Financial News] ‘The National Pension Service has yet to recover about 13 million won in survivors’ pension payments Lee Eun-hae received after killing her husband; she was sentenced to life for the ‘Gapyeong Valley murder’ case.’
On the 11th, according to documents submitted by the National Pension Service and others to Rep. Kim Gyo-heung of the Democratic Party of Korea, a member of the National Assembly’s Health and Welfare Committee, Lee applied for survivors’ pension after killing her husband in 2019. She then received about 13 million won over 28 months, at 460,000 won per month.
After Lee’s life sentence was finalized by the Supreme Court in 2023, the National Pension Service revoked her entitlement to survivors’ pension. However, it has yet to recover the approximately 13 million won already paid.
The money has not been recovered because no assets in Lee’s name have been identified. The National Pension Service told Yonhap News, “The person obligated to repay (Lee Eun-hae) has been incarcerated for a long time, and no assets in her name have been identified, making it difficult to recover the money through seizure or compulsory enforcement.”
Survivors’ pension is a benefit paid to surviving family members when a National Pension subscriber, among others, dies after meeting certain requirements. Survivors may be eligible if the deceased was entitled to an old-age pension, was a subscriber with at least 10 years of coverage, or was a former subscriber, among other cases.
However, entitlement is revoked if a survivor intentionally causes the death of a pension subscriber or former subscriber. Survivors’ pension received through false or fraudulent means is also subject to full recovery.
Over the past five years, 34 cases of fraudulent survivors’ pension claims were detected, involving a total of 400 million won. However, only 230 million won was actually recovered—56.3% of the total amount fraudulently received.
There have also been cases in which people received survivors’ pension for a long time after falsely reporting a living spouse as dead. According to National Pension Service records, one beneficiary falsely reported that their spouse, who had left the country in 2001, had died, and then received about 96 million won over 22 years (273 months). The fraud came to light when the spouse returned to the country in 2023.
Rep. Kim called for stronger recovery measures, saying there had been cases of people fraudulently receiving National Pension benefits through other methods, such as concealing a death, in addition to fraudulent survivors’ pension claims. He stressed, “Fraudulent survivors’ pension payments totaled 400 million won over five years, and, separately, there are many more cases of people fraudulently receiving National Pension benefits through other methods, such as concealing a death. To ensure that subscribers who diligently pay their contributions are not harmed, those who commit fraud must be tracked down to the end and all the money recovered.”


[email protected] Han Seung-gon Reporter