By Park Hyong-ki
Staff Reporter
Bowing to mounting pressure from civic groups, prosecutors and financial regulators are moving to launch separate probes into allegations that Samsung Group's Chairman Lee Kun-hee orchestrated a scheme of bribery and illegal transactions.
Lawyer Kim Yong-chul, a former executive of Samsung's legal department, said that the group created massive slush funds using bank accounts under employees' names, bribed prosecutors and government officials, and Chairman Lee and his aides helped his son take over control of Samsung in illicit stock and wealth transactions.
In the latest corruption scandal involving Samsung, the focal point is whether the Samsung Group opened and managed a number of accounts under executive names for slush funds, which is a violation of laws banning the use of false names for bank accounts.
A senior Financial Supervisory Service official said that it will investigate whether Samsung really opened such accounts.
The official said those accounts opened at financial firms, including Woori Bank, would be looked into should the prosecutors request the regulatory body's assistance in its Samsung probe.
``The prosecution will likely call for the investigation, if so, we will check whether there were any law violations,'' Lee Woo-cheol, deputy governor of the FSS, told a radio program. ``And we will actively cooperate with the prosecutors' probe.''
Lee said the bank watchdog's probe will be focused on checking whether the lawyer opened the accounts under his own name or other Samsung Group officials opened them using Kim's name.
Kim, acting as a whistleblower exposing Samsung's corruptions and scandals, claimed that while working as a legal counsel at Samsung, he handled bribes and helped fix evidence related to Everland, the group's amusement theme park, which involved Samsung executives selling its convertible bonds at a low price to Lee Jae-yong as a means to help his father Chairman Lee transfer power and wealth to his only son. The Everland case is still awaiting the Supreme Court ruling.
Based on Kim's disclosure, the People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy and Lawyers for a Democratic Society filed a complaint with the prosecution Tuesday against Samsung executives including Chairman Lee, demanding an investigation into their alleged wrongdoings.
The Supreme Prosecutors' Office has asked the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office to conduct the probe because Kim claims to have the list of prosecutors' names who received bribes from Samsung.
``We decided the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office seemed fit to probe Samsung as it was investigated (the Everland case) before,'' said a Supreme Office prosecutor.
Prosecutors have been slow to launch an investigation and are still deciding on which department will be assigned the case.