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December 05, 2008
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| Prosecutors have raided the Daegu Regional Tax Office on suspicion that Korea’s top steel producer, Posco, bribed a former chief of the tax office to soften a corporate audit in 2005. Roh Seung-kwon, the prosecutor in charge of the investigation, said Wednesday that he has obtained witness testimony that Posco offered bribes to Daegu’s former tax chief, Lee Ju-sung. Lee was arrested on separate bribery charges on Nov. 12. The Seoul Western District Prosecutors’ Office said it has also obtained other circumstantial evidence that Posco money had indeed gone to Lee. The Daegu District Court issued a search warrant on Wednesday, and investigators raided the tax office and confiscated Posco’s 2005 audit reports. The prosecution also obtained a tip from an informant that a senior Roh Moo-hyun administration official had taken part in the bribery. “We are figuring out whether the bribe was to ask Lee to cut the company’s taxes or to shorten the period of the tax probe,” said a prosecution source who wished not to be named. “We are also trying to find out how much was offered as bribes.” “At the time, the Daegu Regional Tax Office decided to collect 179 billion won [$121 million] in punitive taxes from the company after the probe,” the source said. “But the tax office did not inform the prosecution about the case.” “We normally inform the prosecution about a case based on the method and the amount of tax evaded,” a Daegu tax official said. “The Posco case, however, was not a case to be reported to the prosecution based on our internal yardstick.” Prosecutors will analyze the confiscated data and summon officials involved. According to the prosecution and the tax office, the tax probe at issue was Posco’s first audit since the company was privatized in 2002. Upon the tax office’s decision to collect the punitive tax, Posco took the case to the National Tax Tribunal in June 2002. The case is currently pending. Prior to the Posco case, Lee had already been investigated for other bribery charges. He was detained last month on charges of receiving 1.9 billion won from Prime Group in 2006 in return for supporting the company’s bid to buy Daewoo Engineering and Construction. Daewoo was sold to Kumho in 2007. By Jang Joo-young JoongAng Ilbo [mijukim@joongang.co.kr] |
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