Lee Man Hee, the 95-year-old founder of the South Korean Shincheonji religious sect, has been arrested.
He is accused of pressuring more than 50,000 members of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus to join the conservative People Power Party (PPP) between 2021 and 2024, the official South Korean news agency Yonhap reported on Wednesday.
The aim, it is alleged, was to influence the party's internal primaries for the presidential and parliamentary elections in order to secure advantages for the Shincheonji community.
The authorities are also investigating whether Lee may have embezzled funds amounting to the equivalent of up to $8.10 million. According to reports, Lee has denied the allegations.
The court in Seoul responsible for the case justified the decision to remand the sect's founder in custody, despite his advanced age, on the grounds that there was a risk of evidence being destroyed.
Yonhap said that Lee is likely to be one of the oldest prisoners in South Korea. There are currently only five people over the age of 90 in the country's prisons.
Lee was an outspoken supporter of the conservative former president Yoon Suk Yeol, who was elected to office in 2022. After Yoon unexpectedly declared martial law in December 2024, he was removed from office by the Constitutional Court and has since been sentenced to life imprisonment for inciting a riot.
Lee Man Hee founded the Shincheonji sect in 1984. The end-times cult often operates under aliases in order to recruit new members.
