By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter
Prosecutors are investigating whether the TV program directors of entertainment shows traveled overseas to gamble with an entertainment company financing the trip.
Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office said Monday that it had secured evidence supporting the overseas gambling tour.
``They traveled to Macao and gambled with the money offered by the entertainment company,'' a prosecutor said. ``We are tracking their travel records.''
The prosecution is also tracing suspicious money transfers to the bank accounts directors' of Fantom Entertainment, the entertainment firm implicated in the scandal.
It plans to summon the producers in question this week to determine whether the overseas trip was offered in exchange for giving favors to entertainers of the company, the prosecutor said.
The prosecution launched an investigation earlier this month into 40 TV producers including some chief directors at the three major broadcasters ― KBS, MBC and SBS ― for allegedly taking bribes from entertainment companies.
Critics denounced the probe, calling it as an act of retaliation against some broadcasters especially MBC, which spearheaded the opposition of U.S. beef imports thorough its programs including ``PD Notebook,'' while the government criticized broadcasters for intentionally distorting and exaggerating the risk of U.S beef in a series of programs.
Prior to the overseas gambling case, prosecutors began investigating some TV directors on suspicion of receiving hundreds of thousands of shares of the nation's largest entertainment group Fantom Entertainment and casino chips worth millions of won from the company in bribes in exchange for favors given to its entertainers.
The prosecution, which has imposed overseas trip bans on roughly 10 directors, will summon them in the near future since Fantom Entertainment's head recently testified how he had delivered bribes to producers.
According to the prosecution, in 2005, Fantom Entertainment offered producers some 800,000 shares as bribes. The company's initial stock worth of 300 won climbed to 43,000 won in just one year and the producers in question allegedly reaped huge gains.