Taekwang chairman indicted for corruption

Taekwang Group chairman Lee Ho-jin and six other senior executives have been indicted on charges of embezzlement and breach of trust, prosecution officials said Monday, capping an investigation that initially raised suspicions of political and business lobbying.

The 49-year-old Lee is charged with pocketing 53.6 billion won ($47.7 million) through accounting maneuvers and causing damage to the company worth 117.5 billion won by selling its golf clubs below market prices and extending loans to its affiliates without collateral, the Seoul Western Prosecutors’ Office said in a press release.

Prosecutors also indicted Lee’s 82-year-old mother, Lee Seon-ae, who was in charge of the company’s financial management, and five former and present senior executives on the same charges.

“(Lee Ho-jin) embezzled company funds even after he conducted a massive layoff following the 1997 Asian financial crisis. (The defendant) showed a serious lack of ethics as he used this money to pay his personal taxes and to increase his own properties,” the office said in the press release.

While the prosecutors said they found that Lee has created 440 billion won of slush funds under company employees’ names and used part of the money for personal purposes, they did not bring a bribery charge against him.

Taekwang Group, the nation’s 40th largest family-owned business, came under the prosecution’s probe in October with allegations that it lobbied influential political figures to win a cable TV channel license from the state broadcasting authority.

Taekwang owns the nation’s No. 1 cable operator “Tbroad,” but it failed to win broadcasting rights to run its own channel last month.

Critics say the Taekwang investigation has failed to get to the core by not revealing the suspected lobbying activities. 

(Yonhap News)