Superintendent Choi Escaped again to Indonesia

The second special prosecution office of the Seoul district prosecution office (chief prosecutor Cha Dong-Min) summoned and questioned CEO of Future City Environment Choi Kyu-Sun (42 years old), who was allegedly involved in various influence peddling along with the third son Hong-Gul of the president Kim Dae-Jungm, on April 16.

The prosecution office intensely questioned Mr. Choi about reasons why he gave away a great amount of money to Hong-Gul, and the circumstance of setting up a slush fund amounting several billion Won, and using corporate credit cards of corporations including S construction company.

The prosecution office also investigated the circumstance of receiving 1.5 billion Won from CEO of Tiger Pools International Song Jae-Bin (34 years old), who is a majority holder of Sports Toto inc., which issue `Sports ToTo` athletic lottery tickets.

Mr. Choi initially claimed that he received one billion Won as a commission for inducing overseas fund, but Mr. Song said that a total of 1.5 billion Won is given including 1.2 billion Won for stock dealing commission in two occasions in April and May last year and 0.3 billion Won for foreign investment inducement activities.

However the suspicion on the reasons of giving money is still persistent since Mr. Choi has not induced any capital to actual fund and 1.2 billion Won is too big as a commission for stock dealing of 6.6 billion Won.

On this issue, Mr. Song said, `We have proposed Mr. Choi to purchase TPI stocks worth of 1.15 billion Won with the commission 1.2 billion Won that we gave him, which Mr. Choi accepted,` and added, `We thought that Mr. Choi would exert more effort in inducing foreign capital when he becomes a stock holder of our company.`

In other story, former director of the special investigation division of the National Police Agency (NPA) Choi Sung-Kyu (52 years old, superintendent), who was allegedly involved in irregularities of Choi Kyu-Sun, moved to Indonesia from HongKong on April 15.

NPA inspector Ha Tae-Sin said, `Former director Choi is confirmed to depart to Indonesia from HongKong on board CX 777 of Cathay Pacific Airlines at 9:30 A.M. on April 15,` and added, `Former director Choi is accompanied by his eldest son-in-law.`

Inspector Ha said, `It seems that former director Choi flew to Indonesia as a criminal extradite agreement is not established between Korea and Indonesia,` and added,` We can not issue a search warrant since little concrete evidence against former director Choi is found so far and he is holding the passport in normal way.`

The police are looking for whereabouts of former director Choi through the resident officer in Korean embassy in Indonesia and urging his family members to persuade him to return home.

Myoung-Gun Lee gun43@donga.com · myzodan@donga.com