Financial Investigation Closing in on Roh`s Advisors

The DA`s office searched the headquarters of Nics, Inc. yesterday, whose CEO Kim Hyo-geun is the younger brother of former Bosung Group chairman Kim Ho-joon.

The older Kim is suspected of having engaged in illegal lobbying and bribed politicians to resuscitate his ailing enterprise. The prosecution is now poring over confiscated documents to find out whether an additional slush fund was established and managed by the younger Kim.

The DA`s office called the Kim brothers, including Ho-yon and Ho-geun, former Nara Bank president Ahn Sng-tae and vice president Chun Young-nam in for questioning, and has reportedly been grilling them to discover whether they bribed Millennium Democratic Party chairman Han Kwang-ok and one other unidentified politician.

The prosecution confiscated Nics` ledgers and computer hard drives and is examining them for clues proving former chairman Kim`s use of Nics` corporate funds for bribery purposes. The DA`s office has inspected all bank transactions of Ahn Hee-chung, an important advisor to President Roh, and found out that he received 200 million from Hyo-geun in July of 1999. The office however, reportedly failed to confirm what the money`s purpose was.

The prosecution is now looking into the usage of the money under various scenarios.

First, the DA`s office suspect Ahn gave the money to a political group established by President Roh Moo-hyun, who was Millennium Democratic Party chairman at the time. The DA`s office however does not reject the possibility that the money was funneled into another political figure`s account. Once examination of the bank records is concluded, the prosecution will summon Yum Dong-yon, another powerful advisor of President Roh, for questioning in the near future.

The DA`s office is launching yet another probe into allegations that a Millennium Party Democrat pressured the Korea Deposit Insurance Corporation into abandoning its investigation of Ahn near the end of 2001.

The unidentified Millennium Democratic congressman reportedly denies the allegations. "I heard Ahn was being investigated. I called just to find out what was going on. That`s all. It had nothing to do with the investigation," he said.

viyonz@donga.com tesomiom@donga.com