Another Possible Bribery Case Against President Park

About every five years, I think, the Korean Customs Office reviews and awards the licenses for duty free shops in Seoul. After the duty free licenses were awarded to five companies this year, the government announced that it would award more licenses and were accepting applications. The five companies that were previously awarded licenses strongly complained about the added competition considering most of the new duty free shops were operation at a loss.

Prosecutors have found it suspicious that President Park met with the Chairmen of Lotte and SKT, both of which had lost duty free licenses this year. Lotte won a license for their main shop in the center of Seoul, but lost the license for their other shop at Lotte World. SKT had lost the license for their shop at Walker Hill Hotel.

A few weeks after the meeting, the government announced that more duty free licenses would be issued. Choi Soon-sil and Presidential Secretaries called on Lotte and SKT and requested that several million dollars in donations be made to two sports foundations controlled by Choi Soon-sil through board members appointed by her.

SKT said that they could not donate any more money. Lotte donated 7 billion won, but had it returned the day before a search warrant was carried out at Lotte.

The prosecutors just carried out additional search warrants at Lotte, SKT, Korean Customs Office and the Ministry of Planning and Budget in order to find evidence of influence peddling and the more serious charge of bribery against President Park.

Yesterday, prosecutors found evidence that ex-Senior Secretary for Civil (domestic) Affairs, Woo Byung-woo had received reports on ex-Presidential Secretary Ahn Jong-bom regarding influence peddling and coercion, but ignored them. They are looking into other allegations and many expect that Woo Byung-woo will be arrested soon.


Korea Herald: Prosecution trying to prove Park’s bribery charges