Hidden Money
The Korea Center for Investigative Journalism (KCIJ) held a press conference in Seoul on April 4 and said that the name of Roh Jae-heon, the eldest son of former South Korean President Roh Tae-woo, was found in the recently leaked Mossack Fonseca documents regarding tax evaders. The KCIJ added that he also helped SK Group chairman Choi Tae-won launder money with a paper company.
According to the KCIJ, Roh set up One Asia International, GCI Asia and Luxes International. “These are typical paper companies, each of which issued only one US$1 share.” it explained, “It seems that these companies were established for free capital management not supervised by the domestic tax authorities.” It added, “It is likely that he founded these companies in order to hide his wealth revealed during his divorce suit in early 2011 and the slush fund of his father was pocketed via these paper companies, too.” The KCIJ also claimed that the paper companies were utilized for money laundering by the SK Group chairman, who is a brother-in-law of Roh.
In the leaked documents with a total size of 2.6 TB, e-mails, banking records, personal client information and the like for a span of 40 years are revealed. German daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung obtained the documents, dubbed Panama Papers, for the first time and then analyzed them with about 100 news companies such as the KCIJ, BBC, Guardian, Le Monde and Asahi Shimbun. In the Panama Papers, the names of the heads of different states and famous persons are found, including 195 South Korean names.
In the meantime, the National Tax Service of South Korea announced on April 4 that it would launch a tax investigation with regard to the list of tax dodgers. The Financial Supervisory Service also is already checking whether the 195 South Koreans violated the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act.