Former Presidential Slush Funds Additionally Found

The central investigation body (head: Director Park Sang-gil) of the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office has discovered two accounts of Kim Ok-suk, wife of former president Roh Tae-woo, in which approximately 1.19 billion won is deposited. The prosecution seized those accounts in fines.

In 1995, the former president was sentenced to pay 262.896 billion won in penalty taxes for his collection of illegal funds. The prosecution has so far collected 210.9596 billion won, or 80.25 percent of the penalty tax.

The prosecution, which is in the process of tracing accounts, has confirmed that under the name of the former first lady, a 641.6 million won account was opened in January 2002, and another 500 million won account was opened in May 2004, which aroused suspicion that these accounts were related to the former president’s slush fund.

The prosecution said that the money in accounts was deposited mostly in cash at that time, and that the money has grown to 1.19 billion won due to interest.

In her written report submitted to the prosecution, she explained that the money was what her family has managed separately, and had nothing to with the illegal funds of the former president. Then she stated that she would use the money to pay the penalty tax.

The prosecution said that it is highly likely that the money came from the slush fund, but since Kim promised to use it to pay the fine, no further investigation would be made.

On March 29, the prosecution found a slush fund worth 7.39 billion won that the former president had managed in an account of local bank under a false name, and took 1.64 billion won from it, excluding taxes, in fines.

jin0619@donga.com