Kang Shin-wook, former head of Statistics Korea, has been cleared of suspicion that he was involved in the alleged manipulation of income data during the preceding Moon Jae-in government, police said Friday. The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said it has decided not to refer Kang to the prosecution after failing to find charges against Kang, who served as the nation's top statistics official from 2018 to 2020. The police probe began after a civic group filed a complaint in late 2022 alleging that Kang distorted household income data by intentionally reducing the proportion of low-income households in a 2018 survey to make it seem like the Moon administration improved the income bipolarization. The group accused Kang of violating the statistics law, abusing his authority and producing false official documents. Clearing Kang of all the charges, however, the police agency said that it is reasonable to say that the household income statistics in question were prepared and distributed in accordance with scie ntific methods to ensure statistical accuracy and consistency. Kang has been separately on trial after being indicted without detention by the prosecution last month on charges of writing a false press release related to a 2019 survey on non-regular employment statistics. Source: Yonhap News Agency