By Oh Young-jin
Staff Reporter
A $160 million embezzlement case involving a mid-level manager at Dongah Construction, which is now under creditors' control, and an employee at Hana Bank is raising an alarm over Korea Inc.'s lack of transparency.
At the center of the case is a Dongah manager, identified only by his family name Park, who was responsible for the company's fund management.
According to Gwangjin Police Station, Park claimed that he had spent approximately 100 billion of the 189 billion won he embezzled over the course of five years.
More specifically, he said that he lost 15 billion won in ill-conceived stock investments; 25 billion won in ``unauthorized'' privately-run casinos; 19 billion won at Kangwon Land Casinos; 10 billion won in Macau; 5 billion won in poker games; and 20 billion won at horse tracks. He added that the rest was used to pay back corporate funds he had earlier embezzled.
However, police are having a hard time verifying his claims, and it is possible that much of the embezzled sum will be left unaccounted for.
Park also claimed that he didn't give much of the money to his accomplices who helped him siphon off the company's money.
Police quoted Park as saying that a Hana manager in charge of corporate lending played a key role in helping him pocket 7.7 billion won in guarantees for repairs to Dongah construction projects. But Park claimed that he gave the accomplice just 10 million won as a ``show of appreciation.''
Park also said that he gave 2 million to 4 million won to his subordinate, with whom he attended high school, every time he helped steal money. The two embezzled a total of 52.3 billion won together.
Police are trying to determine whether Park was covering for his accomplices. An effort is also underway to trace the money through bank accounts, but it is highly unlikely that all of the money will be ever be fully accounted for, considering much of it was spent outside regular channels of transactions over the five years.
Meanwhile, Hana Bank is experiencing internal commotion after it was found that its employee was involved in the crime. Hana officials are checking up on the allegations. The Financial Supervisory Service is also keeping tabs on the incident, and is reportedly preparing to hold the bank's senior executives responsible, depending on the results of further investigations.