Prosecutors to Collect Data on Taekwang CEO

Investigators will go to financial institutions in Busan and South Gyeongsang Province to collect information on cash transactions made by Taekwang Industry CEO Park Yeon-cha.

Park is alleged to have given money to politicians, including former President Roh Moo-hyun.

Prosecutors said yesterday that cash amounting to tens of millions of won (tens of thousands U.S. dollars) was withdrawn from the accounts of Park and corporate executives on more than 1,000 occasions over the past five years. Prosecutors are collecting bank slips and assessing the cash flow appearing on the slips.

Last month, the National Tax Service handed over materials that showed Park frequently withdrew around 49 million won (36,029 dollars) to avoid supervision by the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit, which audits a cash transaction exceeding 50 million won (36,764 dollars).

Banks should collect data on transactions made over the past five years. In addition to their investigation on Park’s cash transaction data kept by banks in Busan and Changwon, however, prosecutors plan to ask for transaction data from before 2004.

Prosecutors said Park and other corporate executives asked banks to describe check transactions as cash transactions. Circumstantial evidence also showed his cash transactions have some legal problems.

Prosecutors have inspected materials provided from tax officials, including cash withdrawal records and a list of people suspected of receiving the money. They have also probed those whose names were written next to a certain amount of money on a pocketbook of a Taekwang executive.

They initially found clues that Park gave money to politicians. Later, however, he was found to have lent money and got it back or given the money to different persons using the same names.

Park is also known to have loaned 1.5 billion won (1.1 million dollars) to former President Roh. Prosecutors also want to know if he gave money to politicians.

Park has declined to provide a detailed statement on the allegations against him.

dnsp@donga.com