Hyun-chul may have hidden huge fortune: Reports
Hyun-chul may have hidden huge fortune: Reports
SEOUL (AFP): South Korean President Kim Young-sam's son and his associates are suspected of hiding tens of millions of dollars and prosecutors plan to arrest the son on graft charges on May 10, press reports said yesterday.
The prosecutors also found that the son, Kim Hyun-chul, had accepted some three million dollars directly from several firms and are investigating whether the money was kickbacks for influence peddling, the reports said.
State KBS radio and newspapers here said prosecutors had confirmed that Lee Sung-ho, who allegedly operates Hyun-Chul's hidden assets, had diverted and laundered US$76 million from his construction company, Dai-Ho.
Lee left for the United Sates immediately after Hyun-chul's name surfaced in the course of a massive loans-for-kickbacks scandal surrounding the Hanbo business group in January.
The prosecution has been pressuring Lee's relatives to persuade him to return home, but Hyun-chul has advised him not to come back until his case is wrapped up, a leading newspaper, Dong-A, said.
Prosecutors declined to confirm or deny the reports.
Hyun-chul, 38, has no official position but has been dogged by endless allegations of graft and influence peddling although his father has made an anticorruption campaign his government's top priority.
His father will issue a second public apology over the son and pledge to reform laws on raising political funds and campaigning, Dong-A said.
Dong-A also said the prosecution would summon the son on May 9 and arrest him formally the following day on graft charges.
"We have decided to conclude the Kim Hyun-chul case by May 10 and set the timetable for summoning him accordingly," Dong-A daily quoted a high-ranking prosecution source as saying.
"However, we'll continue questioning him to collect evidence until we indict him around the end of this month," he said.
Prosecutors are also tracing $34 million of political funds left over from the 1992 presidential election allegedly hidden by Hyun-chul in business firms and bank accounts, Kookmin daily said.
Prosecutors arrested two close associates of Hyun-chul on Wednesday for influence peddling, tightening the noose around the president's son.
Prosecutors also said that Hyun-chul had accepted some $336,000 from Dooyang business group, which allegedly solicited the son's help to win a multimillion-dollar legal dispute over share ownership.
But Dooyang Group, a mid-sized conglomerate, said the $336,000 had been a simple donation of political funds to Kim Hyun-chul, who happened to attend the same high school as the group president.
Kim Young-sam said repeatedly after his inauguration in 1992, that he had not taken a penny from businesses, unlike from his jailed predecessors, Chun Doo-Hwan and Roh Tae-woo, who between them were found to have amassed $1.5 billion in slush funds.
But Lee Hoe-chang, a strong presidential candidate and executive chairman of the ruling New Korea Party, repeatedly demanded yesterday, reportedly to the president's dismay, that both the ruling party and the opposition should release details on their spending during the 1992 presidential poll.
The main opposition National Congress for New Politics charged the ruling party had spent up to $1.1 billion or some 30 times the amount the party had reported to election management authorities.