13-member confirmation hearing preparation team formed for National Police Agency chief nominee Kim Jongcheol; declared assets total about 1.7 billion won (roundup)

[Financial News] The National Police Agency has formed a 13-member team to prepare for nominee Kim Jongcheol’s National Assembly confirmation hearing. Lee Young-cheol, chief of the Agency’s Autonomous Police Planning Division, who also serves as head of the Police Reform Division and holds the rank of senior superintendent general, will lead the team. The assets that Kim reported for himself and his family as of the end of last year amounted to about 1.7 billion won.
According to the National Police Agency on the 9th, the confirmation hearing preparation team comprises 13 members in three teams—policy development, personal affairs response and National Assembly affairs—under a chief at the senior superintendent general level.
Senior Superintendent General Lee Young-cheol was appointed team chief. The National Police Agency said the appointment took into account his expertise and continuity in related work, including police reform and the establishment of the revised criminal justice system.
One senior superintendent each from the open recruitment route for police officers, the officer candidate program and the Korean National Police University was assigned to a team leader position. Park Jung-hoon, head of the National Police Agency’s Police Reform Planning Team, will lead the policy development team; Park Sung-gap, chief of the Crime Prevention and Response Division at Seoul Songpa Police Station, will lead the personal affairs response team; and Choi In-gyu, the Agency’s innovation planning and coordination officer, will lead the National Assembly affairs team.
The Agency said team members were also selected with their expertise and recruitment routes in mind, to ensure that a range of views within the police organization would be represented evenly.
The preparation team was also kept as small as possible. Rather than recruit separate personnel for the National Assembly affairs team, the Agency assigned the work to four employees from the National Assembly Section of its Innovation Planning and Coordination Office, the existing unit in charge of parliamentary affairs.
A National Police Agency official said, “We plan to turn the public’s hopes for a safer society and calls for police reform into public safety policies, and to develop concrete policy visions and tasks to restore public trust.”
Meeting reporters that morning at the National Police Agency headquarters in Seoul’s Seodaemun District, Kim identified responses to violent crimes—including relationship-based crimes and crimes with abnormal motives—as his top priority. He said he would also work to secure investigative personnel and budgets to establish the new criminal justice system and to protect frontline police officers.
Meanwhile, the assets Kim reported for himself and his family during his tenure as chief of the Gyeongnam Provincial Police Agency totaled 1,718,843,000 won. According to the public officials’ asset disclosures released in March, Kim, his spouse and their three children reported total assets of 1,718,843,000 won as of December 31 last year.
The largest asset was an 800 million won lease deposit for an apartment in Songpa District, Seoul, registered in Kim’s name. Land owned by Kim and his spouse in Seongnam City, Gyeonggi Province, and Hamyang County, South Gyeongsang Province, was reported at a combined 398,436,000 won.
Bank deposits held in family members’ names totaled 689,616,000 won, while securities were valued at 54,073,000 won. Kim and his spouse reported financial liabilities of 231,842,000 won.
[email protected] Kim Ye-ji Reporter