By Na Jeong-ju
Staff Reporter
Investigators on Tuesday raided the office of Hanwha Group chairman Kim Seung-youn and the group’s restructuring headquarters in Seoul and seized financial documents as part of an investigation into illegal campaign donations by conglomerates during the 2002 presidential race.

The prosecution said it sent a team of 10 investigators to the Hanwha offices in the morning and seized accounting records and computer hard drives.

The raid followed a tip that Hanwha, the nation’s seventh-largest conglomerate, established slush funds to make illegal donations to the main political parties in late 2002 to support their presidential campaigns. Kim will likely be summoned as soon as he returns from the United States. The chairman left for the U.S. on the New Year’s Day, only one day before he was planned to be subject to a travel ban, prosecutors said.

The prosecution has raided the key offices of Samsung, Hyundai Motor, LG, Lotte and Kumho Asiana over the illegal campaign funding. Some prosecutors indicated that similar actions might be taken against Hanjin, Hyosung, Doosan and several other business groups.

The opposition Grand National Party (GNP) collected about 55 billion won in political funds from the nation’s top four conglomerates _ Samsung, LG, SK and Hyundai Motor _ while then-ruling Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) said it raised about 11 billion won in corporate donations. Some estimates show that the total amount of political funds taken by the GNP may exceed 100 billion won.

Last week, the prosecution indicted four of President Roh Moo-hyun’s former aides for their involvement in the illegal fundraising in the run-up to the presidential election. Four figures, including Moon Byung-wook, chairman of Sun & Moon Group and former National Tax Service chief Sohn Young-lae, were also indicted. Roh won the presidential race on the MDP ticket.

Roh himself is at the center of attention now over allegations that he helped reduce corporation taxes for Sun & Moon, a hotel and resort business chain, in return for campaign donations. A probe by independent counsel Kim Jin-heung was launched on Monday to look into the allegations and corruption charges against his former aides as the result of the GNP maneuvers.

Prosecutors said they are looking into allegations that Hanwha’s construction subsidiary stashed 1 billion won in slush funds through its subcontractors.

While carrying out a construction project in Taejon, Hanwha Engineering & Construction allegedly stashed the secret funds by inflating estimates of total costs, prosecutors said. The money was allegedly distributed among politicians and government officials, they added.

jj@koreatimes.co.kr