Bank Probe Travel Ban List Expanded

A government official from an economic department had a disconcerting experience when he arrived at Incheon International Airport to leave for overseas training.

He had gone to the airport buoyed up with expectations for the hard-won chance to study abroad, but found to his dismay that he was forbidden to depart from Korea. He had had no clue that his name was included in the list of people under investigation for the Korea Exchange Bank (KEB) sale scandal, and was thus banned from leaving the country.

Many other employees from government agencies or financial institutions linked with the 2003 sale of KEB, such as the Ministry of Finance and Economy (MOFE) or Financial Supervisory Commission, are suffering under a similar scare.

The prosecutors do not notify the concerned party of being forbidden to depart the country, spreading anxieties among people wondering whether their names had also been included. There are also evident signs of consternation that the ban list extends to working-level personnel.

Until now, only six or seven high-level key figures had been known to have been placed under such a measure for allegations of unfair dealing in the sale of the bank, including former Finance Minister and Vice Prime Minister Lee Hun-jai, as well as Lee Kang-won, president of Korea Investment Corporation, previously head of KEB.

“The investigation seems to be targeting a wider range of people than we thought, since even working-level employees are forbidden to leave the country,” noted a MOFE official. “People feel even more uneasy because they won’t know whether they are banned until they actually get to the airport immigration desk.”

Under the related regulations, the Ministry of Justice decrees that the departure ban is placed on “those under investigation for criminal charges.” The implications are therefore all the more threatening as the measure is only applied to people either deemed suspects or under secret inspection, and not to those judged as witnesses only.

The financial sector is not free from such fears either.

An executive at a local commercial bank was also stopped at the airport trying to go on an overseas business trip. Without his knowledge, he had also been forbidden to leave Korea as he had previously worked at a related foreign investment bank.

The industry is focusing its attention on the fact that the current cases of KEB sale or illegal lobbying at Hyundai Motors under public investigation all concern financial institutions.

“There is a general feeling that anyone who had worked in a related department may be under secret investigation, as the nature of the issues mean unexpected problems can come up,” explained another bank executive.

The Immigration Control Law and Enforcement Ordinances state that people forbidden to leave the country should be notified of the fact, but the prosecutors tend not to do so in cases pertaining to the good of the public and not private interests.

When asked to check the departure ban for unavoidable reasons such as an important business trip, the Public Prosecutor’s Office will confirm yes or no, or lift it temporarily, but people rarely make use of this process.

On the other hand, those employees at agencies who have safely returned from overseas business travels are sighing with relief at the certainty of being outside the investigation.

“The Korea Exchange Bank and Hyundai Motor cases are dragging on and expanding in scale, and now people wonder whether these excessive departure bans aren’t rather like dragnet inspections,” said a Financial Supervisory Commission official. “We hope the investigations reach an end quickly so that we can get on with normal work again.”

Hyun-Jin Park Jin-Kyun Kil witness@donga.com leon@donga.com