President Lee Jae-myung on the 26th ordered his aides to prepare economic sanctions against the "fraudulent receipt of national subsidies." At a senior secretaries' meeting that afternoon, Lee said, "I want thorough measures to prevent fraudulent receipts and to hold people accountable, so that everyone can clearly recognize that if you are caught stealing taxpayers' money, you will be ruined."
Lee said recent cases of catching fraudulent receipt of national subsidies have increased, and among them, cases using "broker rings run like corporations" have also come to light, adding, "This kind of brazen tax theft happens because they see taxpayers' money as free for the taking."
He added, "We must hold people strictly accountable and ensure such incidents do not happen again," instructing officials to consider not only the full recovery of fraudulently received funds but also economic sanctions "amounting to several times" that sum. He also said, "We must firmly instill the idea that you cannot profit by breaking the rules and that following the rules is not a disadvantage."
Recently, Lee has warned of "ruin" for various wrongful acts, signaling a hard-line stance. The previous day, he introduced on X (formerly Twitter) a move by Financial Services Commission Chair Lee Eog-weon to revamp whistleblower rewards for stock price manipulation and wrote, "Ruin for stock price manipulation!" He also said, "Now, when you report stock price manipulation, you can receive tens of billions or hundreds of billions of won as a reward. It's certainly easier than the lottery to change your fortunes."
On the 30th, he attached on X an article saying that "even a Chinese crime organization operating locally in Cambodia does not recruit Korean members because it fears a crackdown by Korean police," and wrote, "If you mess with Koreans, you'll be ruined. Does that sound like empty talk to you?" Aiming at Cambodia, he placed Khmer script at the top and Hangul at the bottom.