Police have launched a forced investigation into the local police station that previously handled the illegal rebate suspicion case involving Daewoong Pharmaceutical, after detecting circumstances that investigation information was leaked to the outside.

The Anti-Corruption and Economic Crime Investigation Unit of the Gyeongnam Provincial Police Agency conducted a search and seizure at the Seongnam Jungwon Police Station on August 7 on charges of divulging official secrets.

It was reported that police secured materials containing the progress of the Daewoong Pharmaceutical rebate case handled by the Seongnam Jungwon station during this search and seizure.

Police plan to successively summon and question relevant individuals as soon as they finish analyzing the seized items.

Previously, a public whistleblower, presumed to be an insider at Daewoong Pharmaceutical, reported a report containing details of the company's illegal rebate sales over a two-year period from January 2022 to December 2023 to the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission in April 2024.

The report stated that around 130 sales representatives of Daewoong Pharmaceutical provided rebates in exchange for demanding the prescription of company drugs, including new drugs, targeting some 380 hospitals and clinics (estimated to involve about 200 doctors).

The Seongnam Jungwon Police Station, which was assigned the case, concluded the case without booking in April of last year after investigations led them to deem there were no charges.

However, as controversies over shoddy investigations arose through media reports and other channels, police decided to reinvestigate and transferred the case to the Metropolitan Investigation Unit of the Gyeongnam Provincial Police Agency, a higher-level agency, in June of the same year.

(Photo provided by Gyeongnam Provincial Police Agency, Yonhap News)