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Former President Lee Myung-bak is approached by a protester upon entering a restaurant in the Gangnam district of Seoul for a year-end party on Dec. 18. (by Shin So-young

Prosecutors have set up a special team to launch a full-fledged investigation into allegations of a slush fund at DAS, a car parts company whose real owner has long been alleged to be former president Lee Myung-bak. The anti-corruption department at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, under senior prosecutor Kim U-hyeon, announced on Dec. 22 that it had set up a team to investigate allegations of embezzlement at DAS raised by People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy.

The team has set up an office at the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors’ Office and will be commencing its investigation on Dec. 26. The team, under the lead of Mun Chan-seok, the deputy chief prosecutor at the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors’ Office, will consist of more than 10 people, including Noh Man-seok, head of the special investigation department at the Incheon District Prosecutors’ Office; two mid-level prosecutors; investigators; and support staff charged with accounting analysis and fund tracking.

“We decided to set up a separate team to carry out a swift and fair investigation, since the statute of limitations for all the charges in the complaint will expire on Feb. 21, 2018,” said a source with the prosecutors’ office.

On Dec. 7, People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy and MINBYUN-Lawyers for a Democratic Society asked the prosecutors to investigate Lee Sang-eun (the older brother of Lee Myung-bak) and the unidentified actual owner of DAS. “There are allegations that the actual owner of DAS embezzled more than 12 billion won (US$11.1 million) to create a slush fund, concealed criminal proceeds, and committed tax fraud,” the two groups said in their complaint.

The groups also filed a complaint against former special prosecutor Jung Ho-yeong for “neither investigating the suspicious flow of funds at DAS he had learned about nor handing this information to the prosecutors.”

When asked why the team was composed of prosecutors who had not been part of previous investigations into DAS, a source at the prosecutors’ office said that “our first consideration was impartiality,” adding that “we’re not considering the idea of appointing a prosecutor who reports directly to the prosecutor-general because no evidence has emerged that the prosecutors who were assigned to the former special prosecutor are connected [with the crime].”

“During the investigation, I was not able to find any evidence that Lee Myung-bak was the actual owner of DAS. I also confirmed that the embezzlement by DAS employees was intended for their personal gain and not to create a slush fund,” Jung Ho-yeong said in a Dec. 22 press release denying the allegations against him.

By Yeo Hyeon-ho, senior staff writer

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