Prosecutors Name 3rd JU Lobby Suspect

The Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors’ Office’s Criminal Department, investigating charges of JU Group-sponsored illegal lobbying, arrested a 47-year-old woman, Kim, on December 3 after confirming that Kim received a commission of about 6 billion won within the past 6 months since the end of last year. She is known to have received the highest commission among the 340,000 multilevel marketers of JU Networks

The prosecution is investigating the possibility that chairman of the JU Group Joo Su-do (age 50, arrested) might have fabricated papers to give a commission to Kim as an inside deal to raise a slush fund.

Prosecutors confirm Kim’s plan to bribe scores of prosecution and police officials directly. In addition, they is identifying the possibility that Kim was the third figure to have lobbied politicians or government officials following the other two figures, Han Eui-sang (45) and a 46-year-old woman, Kang.

The prosecution decided to summon the brother-in-law of senior prosecutor K who has been found to have business dealings of about 50 million won with Han, a close confidant of Chairman Joo Su-do, on December 4.

Among the six family members of the presidential secretary Lee Jae-soon, who joined in the multilevel marketing business scheme of the JU by investing 1.38 billion won, earned a return of 1.18 billion won; two members, the brother-in-law and the brother of secretary Lee, were summoned and questioned on December 1. They stated, “We didn’t receive extra allowances. All our business dealings were normal.”

Meanwhile, as for the lawsuit by the JU network, it has been reported that the Seoul Central District Court ruled against JU on November 10. Before, JU had filed a suit against the mutual benefit association of multinational industries, which compensates customers for their losses, of canceling the entry contract as a consequence of confiscating the group’s electric record.

JU filed a suit arguing the cancellation of contract to be voided when the mutual benefit association notified JU of the cancellation because JU did not correct their wrong sales record. According to the results of the investigation, JU raised sales up to 365.07 billion won within the three months from April 1 to June 27 last year, but only reported an amount of 24.77 billion won and omitted 340.3 billion won on the sales list.

woogija@donga.com