Two Bill. Won May Ended up to Kim Hong-Gul

As the second investigative office (chief prosecutor Cha Dong-Min) of the Seoul District Public Prosecutor`s Office estimated on May 10 that the third son Hong-Gul of President Kim Dae-Jung may have received about a total of two billion Won from CEO of Future City Environment Choi Kyu-Sun, the prosecution has been focusing its attention on the characters of the money.

The prosecution has gained evidence that some of the 1.6 billion Won Choi received from CEO of alias D company Mr. Park and others as kickbacks for influence-peddling has ended up in the hand of Hongul, in addition to the three hundred million Won Hong-Gul received from Choi among the proceeds of the Tiger Pools International (TPI) stock sales.

Additionally, the prosecution is investigating the exact amounts and details of the money transferred since some of the 2.5 billion Won delivered to Mr. Choi as a kickback from the seven billion Won that TPI CEO Song Jae-Bin has gained by selling 200 thousand shares of TPI stock, was relayed to Hong-Gul.

The prosecution summoned chief of the lottery project preparation office of the National Sports Promotion Foundation, alias Park, to question him whether lobbies or outside pressures were exerted on the selection process of lottery operator TPI in February last year.

The prosecution is also taking efforts to locate former Seoul deputy mayor for political affairs Kim Hee-Wan since former deputy mayor Kim is suspected of informing Rep. Sul Hoon about the allegation of money deal of Choi with former GNP president Lee Hoi-Chang.

According to a source, former deputy mayor Kim informed Rep. Sul of the alleged money deal while asking for a prosecution investigation without physical detention, but disappeared as the investigation began in earnest.

The prosecution is also analyzing the contents of sent and received e-mails from the four e-mail accounts used by Choi and recovering the necessary parts of the deleted e-mails.

The prosecution is also investigating the circumstance of alleged request that Choi made last year to former chairman of the Asia Pacific subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Steven Solaz asking him, `help us to make the Korean government purchase F15 K manufactured by Boeing.`

In other hand, the prosecution had scheduled to call in POSCO CEO Yoo Sang-Boo in the day to probe on the suspicions of TPI stock purchase by POSCO, but decided to delay the summon to early next week as the investigation of POSCO officials has not yet finished.

Sang-Rok Lee Jin-Kyun Kil myzodan@donga.com leon@donga.com