Catholic priests in South Korea have accused the country's largest family-run conglomerate of keeping multi-billion won slush funds in secret bank accounts and called for an investigation of the case.But the Samsung Group denied it owns the money in bank accounts of a former company lawyer, who exposed the alleged irregularity.
According to Hankyoreh, the Catholic Priests Association for Justice (CPAJ), which is fighting for political and social reforms, made the call for an investigation at a press conference in Seoul.
The group alleged that Samsung opened in 2006 a Woori Bank account for Kim Yong-cheol without the consent of the former head of the legal department at Samsung's Restructuring Office.
The account had an initial deposit of $198,000 that grew to more than $5.5 million due to interests.
Kim could not check the bank account's transactions because it is a security account.
Because of nature of the bank account, the CPAJ considered its money as slush funds.
The CPAJ also claimed that Samsung opened three other secret bank accounts under Kim's name.
One of the accounts had almost $1.9 million in deposit on Aug. 27 and was used to buy Samsung-related bonds. The group said such use of the money was a form of money laundering.
CPAJ further charged that Samsung secretly keeps 1,000 similar bank accounts named after top executives of the company to manage trillions of won of slush funds.
The group said it will reveal other corrupt practices of Samsung, including accounting fraud, and the possible involvement of the banks, police, prosecutors and the government's tax and finance agencies.
A Samsung official said Kim gave his bank account to a co-worker, who managed the money together with a person not connected with the company.
The official said the money belongs to Kim.
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