By Kim Rahn Staff Reporter Samsung Group created a slush fund amounting to 200 billion won through improper deals among affiliates, according to the group's former insider Monday. He also said the group Chairman Lee Kun-hee's wife and other executives bought artwork with the family-owned conglomerate's slush fund. In related news, the prosecution banned eight to nine people named as being involved in the scandal, including Chairman Lee, Vice Chairman Lee Hak-soo and President Kim In-joo, from traveling overseas during its investigation. It also demanded Kim Yong-chul, the former director of the legal department at Samsung Group, present himself for questioning within the week. Kim disclosed documents as evidence for his claim about the company's alleged slush fund creation at a media briefing in Seoul. It was the last of a series of his ``disclosures'' about Samsung's alleged slush fund creation, bribery and other irregularities. According to Kim, Samsung SDI, one of the group affiliates, made contracts with another subsidiary Samsung Corporation's offices in London, Taiwan and New York, to create the slush fund. For example, the London unit bought memory chips at 100 won overseas and resold them to Samsung SDI at 120 won, having one won as commission and diverting the remaining 19 won into the slush fund. He showed a memorandum with signatures of a Samsung Corporation executive and the company's London office head. Kim said one Samsung SDI executive, who retired and went to the U.S., blackmailed Samsung with copies of documents related to the slush fund, demanding the company appoint him as resident executive there and provide living expenses. Kim said parts of the fund were spent in purchasing artwork in 2002 and 2003 by the chairman's wife Hong Ra-hee, who is director of Leeum Samsung Museum of Art, and other Samsung-related figures including Shinsegae Group Chairwoman Lee Myung-hee. The price of the artwork totaled 60 billion won, and Kim disclosed a list of pieces, including Happy Tears by Roy Lichtenstein. Kim also said several Samsung affiliates conducted accounting fraud in 2000, but Samil PricewaterhouseCoopers, an accounting firm, connived with this in return for entertainment. Kim & Chang, the nation's largest law firm, actively participated in fabricating facts for the trial of Lee on charges of illegally transferring his wealth to his son through an illicit convertible bonds deal. The former insider also said Samsung monitored civic groups and made a list of 110 lawyers working with the People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy in order to bribe them. He also claimed the JoongAng Ilbo's detachment from Samsung in 1999 was fake, saying that Lee secretly entrusted the newspaper's then publisher Hong Seok-hyun with his shares in the newspaper, but retained the voting rights. Samsung said Kim's claims were exaggerated and faked. It said in a statement that there was no slush fund created through Samsung SDI's deals, although it cannot find related documents from 1994 as memorandums are usually kept for only five years. The group said Lee's wife once put Happy Tears in her house but did not buy it. It also denied all other allegations, saying Kim defamed all related figures and firms. The JoongAng Ilbo, Samil and Kim & Chang said that Kim's claims were lies, with Samil planning to file a suit against him for defamation. rahnita@koreatimes.co.kr