By Kim Rahn
Staff Reporter
The prosecution has found three additional stock accounts in the name of a former Samsung Group insider and is investigating whether they were used in the conglomerate's alleged slush fund creation.
The prosecution said Monday that it was tracing money transactions in a total of seven accounts registered under the name of Kim Yong-chul, the group's former legal department director, which he said he never opened.
Kim earlier claimed that the nation's largest conglomerate kept slush funds after opening bank and stock accounts under its executives' names, saying 5 billion was deposited in four accounts bearing his name without his knowledge.
He also submitted to the prosecution a list of 20 accounts which are suspected of having been used in the company's illegal dealings, and prosecutors found three of them were opened in Kim's name.
``We confirmed the additional three were `borrowed-name' accounts and are examining the money flow in them,'' a prosecutor said.
``Some among the seven accounts are related, as money was transferred between them. We have not yet found evidence that the money was transferred for specific purpose. We'll look into how the money was managed,'' he added.
He refused to say when the accounts were opened, how much money was kept in them, and whether some of them were closed recently.
Besides those suspected accounts of Kim, the prosecution is investigating about 100 accounts which it discovered during raids on Samsung Securities, the firm's data center and Samsung SDS' data center, under suspicions that Samsung opened them to hide funds to bribe policymakers with.
Prosecutors also recently questioned staff members of Seomi Gallery, which allegedly purchased expensive paintings for Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee's wife Hong Ra-hee with money from the slush fund.
The prosecution is also preparing to hand the case over to an independent counsel, as the law appointing a special investigation team took effect Monday.