NEC Special Prosecutor Team Searches Home of Former Supreme Court Justice Rho Tae-ak; Probes Alleged False Entries in Travel Report

[Financial News] The NEC special prosecutor team (Special Prosecutor Lee Tae-han), which is investigating the ballot-paper shortage during the ninth nationwide simultaneous local elections, searched the residence of Rho Tae-ak, former chair of the National Election Commission and former Supreme Court justice. The team said it had additionally uncovered indications that an official at the National Election Commission entered false information in an official report on Rho’s overseas trip.
The special prosecutor team announced in a media notice on the 21st that it had deployed 12 people, including two dispatched prosecutors and seven investigators, to search Rho’s residence at around 8:10 a.m. that day and seize mobile phones and other items. The applicable charges are occupational embezzlement, preparation of false official documents, and use of those documents. The team said it had also begun searching the Central NEC at around 9 a.m. that day and was securing relevant materials.
This was the first time Rho’s residence had been included in a search. The Joint Investigation Headquarters of Prosecutors and Police, which investigated the case before the special prosecutor team and was headed by Kim Tae-hoon, then third deputy chief prosecutor at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office, listed Rho in a warrant as a suspect in an occupational embezzlement case when it searched the Central NEC on July 20, but his residence was not included at the time.
The issue with the report on the overseas trip had already surfaced during the Joint Investigation Headquarters’ investigation and became a lead in the case. The headquarters found indications that an NEC employee who missed official events to accompany Rho’s spouse on local engagements had been recorded as attending them in the report, and considered whether to pursue charges of preparing false official documents. The headquarters was also reported to have obtained a former NEC official’s statement that, during preparations for the 2025 trips to Denmark and Sweden, the employee had reported the schedule for accompanying Rho’s spouse to him.
During his tenure, Rho took his spouse on three overseas trips: to Australia and New Zealand in December 2022, Germany and Estonia in November 2024, and Denmark and Sweden in November 2025. The trips were found to have cost 64 million won, 72 million won and 90 million won, respectively, for a total of 226 million won. The publicly released trip reports did not mention that his spouse had accompanied him. In June, the People Power Party filed a complaint against Rho and an unidentified NEC official on suspicion of occupational embezzlement.
Rho resigned as chair of the National Election Commission on June 5, saying he would take responsibility for the ballot-paper shortage. The NEC special prosecutor team was launched on August 18, when Lee Tae-han was appointed special prosecutor, and is investigating 12 allegations, including the ballot-paper shortage, manipulation of voter turnout statistics, and overseas junkets.
A special prosecutor team official said, “Based on future analysis of the seized materials, we will get to the bottom of allegations of lax management across the institution’s operations, including overseas junkets by current and former NEC commissioners and employees, and firmly establish where responsibility lies.”   


[email protected] Kim Dong-gyu Reporter