Prosecution Taking Aim at Owner Family of Lotte Group

The prosecution investing corruptions at the Lotte Group’s corruption is taking aim at the owner family of the group. The Defense Industry Investigation Team of the Seoul Central Prosecutors’ Office said that it requested an arrest warrant for Shin Young-ja, chairwoman of the Lotte Scholarship Foundation on charges of bribery and embezzlement according to Act on the Aggravated Punishment, etc. of Specific Economic Crimes on July 4. It was known that the prosecution was reviewing time to summon chairman Shin Dong-bin who returned to Korea the day before.  

Shin Young-ja is accused of having taken kickbacks totaling approximately 3 billion won from Jung Woon-ho, a former CEO of Nature Republic and a sushi franchise company in exchange for allowing them to open their stores in Lotte’s duty-free outlets from 2012 to 2015.  Shin Young-ja is also charged with falsely registering her three daughters as registered executives at BNF, a consulting company about duty-free shops and paying them four billion won in salaries. 

The prosecution that requested an arrest warrant for Shin Young-ja, the eldest daughter of Lotte Group founder Shin Kyuk-ho, is planning to launch an investigation into the owner family on a full scale. The prosecution is taking aim at Lotte Chemical as its first target. Lotte Chemical with its market capitalization of more than nine trillion won is the largest affiliate of the Lotte Group. 

The Special Investigation Team of the Seoul Central Prosecutors’ Office looking into corruption at the Lotte Group announced that they sent a letter to Japan to request cooperation from Japanese judicial authorities in order to get their hands on trade records between Lotte Chemical and Lotte Bussan in Japan. 

The prosecution suspects that Lotte Chemical created slush funds in the form of giving commissions to Lotte Bussan in Japan by putting Lotte Bussan in the middle while importing petrochemical materials from 2010 to 2013.   

On the other hand, chairman Shin Dong-bin who returned to Korea on July 3 after a 26-day overseas business trip to the US and Japan is said to be preparing for a possible summon by the prosecution while checking progress in the prosecution’s investigation with the group leadership.