Possibility of a Boo Young Gate

The Central Investigation Department (Chief Inspector Ahn Dae-hee) of the Supreme Public Prosecutors Office reported that it is planning to reclaim an arrest warrant for Lee Joong-geun, president of Boo Young Co., Ltd., after adding charges of tax evasion on top of his embezzlement charges.

Prosecutors magnified their search after capturing the incident that Boo Young lobbied with women’s rights officials by giving them money and other valuables during Boo Young’s growth in becoming an official construction enterprise in the late 1990s.

An official of the Prosecutors Office answered the doubt of investigation of Boo Young’s political lobbying by stating, “The Boo Young incident is likely to be drawn into another ‘Gate’ episode,” and added, “After the election, prosecutors will become extremely busy.”

Once Lee is served an arrest warrant, he will become the second entrepreneur after Son Gil-seung, former president of SK, to have been in custody during the prosecutors’ investigation of illegal election funds.

According to the prosecutors, Lee’s charges includes raking 27 billion won of secret funds by manipulating public funds that he exchanged with his collaboration enterprise during 1996-2001, and evading about 0.7 billion won worth of taxes.

Prosecutors have also found evidence that Lee provided a significant amount of this secret fund to the political sphere during the 2002 election, and gave a great amount of money and other valuables to women’s rights officials.

The court dismissed the arrest warrant on President Lee’s on March 30 by stating, “Because the entire stock of Boo Young and its collaboration enterprise, Kwang Young Togun, is owned by the suspect or his families, even though he embezzled company funds, the condemnation aspect is weak, and there is no concern of fleeing or destruction of evidence.”

jin0619@donga.com