Seizure and Search: Hanwha’s Corporate Partner’s President’s House

The police raided “D” construction company and arrested the company’s president Kim, who is currently hiding himself, on May 6 in its probe into Hanwha Group’s Chairman Kim Seung-youn’s suspected brawl.

President Kim took a call from chief secretary of Chairman Kim on March 8 asking for a help when Chairman Kim’s second son was allegedly beaten by workers at a drinking bar. He is suspected of taking the employees of the “S” Club located in Bukchang-dong to a construction site in the Cheong-gye Mountains to beat them. After they were threatened and beaten, president Kim handed over two million won to the S Club’s president known as Cho for their treatment.

The police took photos of workers from “D” construction company in its raid on May 6. All the pictures will be shown to the employees at the S Club. In this way, the police will discover who was there where the abduction and beatings took place. They have formed a special task force team to track the whereabouts of President Kim at the time.

The bar workers were subjected to a polygraph test. The police concluded that their statements were found to be true.

The police asked Chairman Kim and his son if they would be tested with the lie detector. They declined, saying, “We can’t trust your investigation.”

The police analyzed the son’s cell phone records on the day of the incident and confirmed that he checked a voice message with his cell phone around Seocho-dong, Seocho-gu at 10:30 p.m. on the day when the brawl occurred. There is, therefore, a high possibility that he is lying, the police said.

The son said, “I came back home right away from the G Karaoke club in Cheongdam-dong on that day and went to the S Club around 11 p.m. with my dad.”

The police are scheduled to issue an arrest warrant for the Chairman Kim early this week after making a thorough investigation of the material evidence. One official from the police said, “There is real progress in our efforts to secure real evidence. We are sure that we will be able to issue arrest warrant for him even now,” suggesting their application for an arrest warrant is imminent.

imsun@donga.com swon@donga.com