President Roh Moo-hyun has appointed former senior prosecutor Cho Jun-woong as the special counsel who will investigate the Samsung scandal. At a press conference at his office after the appointment was announced, Cho, a former head of the Incheon District Prosecutor’s Office, pledged to thoroughly investigate the case and hold those involved responsible.

A special prosecution team that has started probing the allegations says the conglomerate managed a slush fund of some W900 billion (US$1=W944) through proxy bank accounts, opened in the name of 200 former and current employees. Prosecutors after a raid on Samsung Securities found more than 500 proxy bank accounts among thousands of accounts held by 200 Samsung employees.

Prosecutor Park Han-cheol, who oversaw the special investigation, said the conglomerate managed “considerable” slush funds. He added his team laid “a solid foundation” for an independent counsel to uncover the truth. He confirmed most of the allegations by the whistleblower Kim Yong-chul, a Samsung legal adviser from 1997 until 2004, who among other things accused the conglomerate of regularly bribing senior prosecutors and other officials on a so-called “Samsung scholarship.”

Prosecutors also say they have evidence that part of the slush funds went to renowned Korean galleries, but it falls to the special counsel to discover whether the family of Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee spent the money to buy artworks, allegedly for their museum or Leeum.

(englishnews@chosun.com )