Grand National Party Received Illegal Money from Other Companies Besides the SK Group

The Central Investigation Bureau at the Supreme Public Prosecutors’ Office, which is investigating the “illegal fund raising for the presidential election,” said on November 11 that they have clues that the opposition Grand National Party (GNP), which received 10 billion won from the SK Group before the presidential election last year, accepted other illegal money funds for the presidential election from enterprises besides the SK Group. Therefore, the prosecution will now be investigating this suspicion.

“We cannot say there are no clues that the opposition Grand National Party had received illegal money for the presidential election campaign from other enterprises besides the SK Group,” said Moon Hyo-nam of the investigation planning division. The prosecution concluded the possibility that Rep. Choi Don-woong of the GNP, who received 10 billion won from the SK Group before the presidential election last year, called executive officers of other large companies in order to raise funds for the presidential election, thus providing Rep. Choi with large amounts of money. Hence, the prosecution is now investigating those companies.

Accordingly, the prosecution has plans of intensive investigations, such as the receiving of 10 billion won from the SK Group and the usage of that money, and also the possibilities of receiving money from other enterprises, against ex-secretary general, Kim Young-il of the opposition Grand National Party, who is expected to be summoned on November 12.

The prosecution also stated that it has been investigating through the summons of executives of companies who are related to the illegal presidential election funds from November 10. It has been reportedly said that the prosecution has already started to seize the bank account records of most of the large companies.

“We cannot say that the target companies are limited to the ‘top five groups of the companies,’ and there are possibilities on investigations of small and medium-sized enterprises if clues exist,” said Ahn Dae-hee, chief of the Central Investigation Bureau at the Supreme Public Prosecutor`s Office. It implies that the prosecution is comprehensively investigating the situation. The prosecution summoned Sun Bong-sul, President Roh’s chauffeur and owner of Jangsoochun Co., again as a witness and investigated the accurate use of the SK fund, in which 230 million won was received from Choi Do-sul, the ex-presidential secretary.

Meanwhile, the prosecution said that Hyun Myoung-in, vice-president of the board of standing directors of the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI), visited the Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office on November 10 at around 5:30 PM and returned 30 minutes later after delivering the position of the business world by asking the chief prosecutor of this case to finish the investigation early as a consideration of the current difficult situation of the companies

Hyun, former director of Samsung Corporation, visited confidentially by car which was provided by the prosecution and had a meeting with the chief prosecutor instead of the chief executives of the prosecution. As a result, there was supposition that this case is related to Samsung. However, the prosecution denied this, saying it is “unfounded.”

Tae-Hoon Lee Jin-Kyun Kil jefflee@donga.com leon@donga.com