Real facts of tracking fund of intelligence agency

The substance of the political fund of the former Agency for National Security Planning, now the National Intelligence Service, has been unveiled by the prosecution for the first time, creating a major stir in the political world.

Prosecutors caught the NSP fund in the course of tracking the lobbying fund for the selection of rolling stocks of the Gyeongbu (Seoul-Busan) high-speed railway by accident and as a result of their devoted investigation.

While pursuing the fund of Choe Man-Sok, a lobbyist for Alstom of France manufacturing TGV, the prosecutors happened to find fund of unidentified source which had nothing to do with Choe¡¯s money.

Chasing the ``water courses¡¯¡¯ precisely, the prosecutors could discover the ``big reservoir.¡¯¡¯

In fact, money laundering is the first job of those who give and receive bribes. Money laundering is making illegal and abnormal funds through financial institutions.

Fund tracking is a work to detect criminal acts by tracking the procedures of money laundering adversely one by one.

The NSP fund was also minutely laundered. NSP secured cash of several tens of billion won by mobilizing several financial institutions such as Kyoungnam Merchant Bank. Then, the intelligence agency allegedly divided the money into units of several hundreds of million won and distributed them into many accounts, and then gave them to the then ruling party candidates in the general elections.

It is not that difficult to chase the process of money laundering if it is made through checks because the financial institutions virtually have to keep the records of the checks¡¯ receipts and payment for good.

The most difficult job in tracking fund is to chase cash. Checks have clear exit and entrance, but cash leaves no trace. Therefore, the flow of fund is cut if the checks are changed into cash suddenly.

But prosecutors say that cash has also ``invisible tails.¡¯¡¯ For instance, the total amount of cash traded at a bank branch a day averages about 400-500 million won and may reach 1 billion won at the largest. Therefore, if a branch has to more than 100 million in cash at one time, it should borrow cash from other branches or main office or pay in checks after paying in cash only on the slip of payment. So, a precise pursuit of the flow of unusual cash receipt of payment at branches of banks or securities firms could confirm the exit and entrance of illegal money, according to the prosecutors.

Lee Soo-Hyung sooh@donga.com