Former Financial Affairs Director Lee Jae-hyun transported the Money Himself

It has turned out that Grand National Party (GNP) Rep. Choi Don-woong had not specified the amount when requesting political funds from SK Group October last year and had expressed “the more, the better.”

GNP executive Lee Jae-hyun, financial affairs director, was the one who had drove off with the money directly after Rep. Choi had received it from Kim Chang-gun, chief of SK Group’s restructuring head office, and it has turned out that he had moved under Rep. Choi’s order of “take the money.”

GNP Kim Gi-bae, chairman of the finance committee, met with our news reporters on October 25 and told the behind-the-scenes story, saying “Recently, I have met with Rep. Choi and former finance director Lee and heard of this.” Chairman Kim was Lee’s direct superior during his 2000-2001 secretary general years, and Rep. Choi was in charge of the finances during the election and stood in a place where he could order former director Lee. All three of them are from Konggi High School.

Kim’s explanation was different from that of Rep. Choi’s saying, “The party’s finance committee had asked me to receive the money, and I took the money,” and claiming that he was just a simple intermediary and suggested that Choi’s role in it was much greater than he had stated.

Kim said, “Rep. Choi had expressed “the more, the better” of the support scale from SK Group at the beginning, and when he received the 2 billion won, the first portion of the slush fund, they were in 20 vinyl bags with one hundred million won in each, and had said, ‘The vinyl bags are too small. Probably 50 million won is in each of it.’ ”

Kim also said, “SK Chairman Son Kil-seung was not the first person from SK that Choi had contacted.”

Meanwhile, Lee had received Choi’s orders and left in a car at Choi’s apartment underground parking lot in Seoul Yongsan-ku Dongbu Leechon-dong with other staff members. Kim’s explanation was that this money was transferred straight to GNP’s main office in Youido, and was not put into the bank account.

Kim said, “I never heard of former finance director Lee reporting to his superior official Rep. Kim Young-iel, who was the secretary general at the time, when he left for Choi’s home to receive the money, and after returning from it.”

He added that the money received from SK was divided into tens of billions won and was delivered to district party chapters in cash.

Seung-Ryun Kim srkim@donga.com