Kim Ok-sook, widow of former President Roh Tae-woo, boards a vehicle with her son Roh Jae-heon after paying her respects at the National May 18 Cemetery in Unjung-dong, Buk-gu, Gwangju, on May 19 last year, the 45th anniversary of the May 18 Democratic Uprising. [Yonhap]
Kim Ok-sook, widow of former President Roh Tae-woo, boards a vehicle with her son Roh Jae-heon after paying her respects at the National May 18 Cemetery in Unjung-dong, Buk-gu, Gwangju, on May 19 last year, the 45th anniversary of the May 18 Democratic Uprising. [Yonhap]

Prosecutors have launched a forced investigation into allegations that the late former President Roh Tae-woo concealed slush funds — allegations that surfaced during the divorce proceedings between SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won and Noh So-young, director of Art Center Nabi.

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office's Criminal Proceeds Recovery Division, headed by So Jeong-su, executed a search and seizure warrant Friday morning at the private residence of Kim Ok-sook, widow of the former president, in Yeonhui-dong, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, according to legal sources.

Prosecutors also executed warrants at the East Asia Culture Foundation and the Roh Tae-woo Center — both chaired by Roh Jae-heon, the former president's son and South Korea's ambassador to China — as well as at the home of a former presidential aide suspected of providing nominee accounts used to build the slush fund, sources said.

Prosecutors plan to analyze the seized materials to verify details of the alleged slush fund, sources said.

Earlier, Noh's legal team argued in the appellate proceedings of the divorce case that slush funds accumulated by her father, the late former president, helped lay the foundation for the growth of Sunkyong Group, now SK Group.

In support of that claim, they submitted to the court a 30 billion won ($21.5 million) promissory note issued under the name of Sunkyong Construction in 1991, along with memos written by Kim between 1998 and 1999. The memos are said to detail slush funds totaling 90 billion won.

In May 2024, the appellate court handling the divorce case acknowledged that 30 billion won in slush funds from the Sixth Republic had flowed into SK, citing the memos and promissory note held by Kim, who is both Noh's mother and the former president's widow.

Following that ruling, the May 18 Memorial Foundation filed a complaint in October 2024 with the Supreme Prosecutors' Office against Kim, Noh and Ambassador Roh, alleging violations of the Act on Regulation of Concealment of Criminal Proceeds, the Punishment of Tax Evaders Act and the Act on Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes.

"By submitting the memo detailing the slush funds to the court, they effectively acknowledged the existence of illicitly accumulated hidden assets that had been concealed all along," the foundation said.

Prosecutors have been accelerating work on long-unresolved cases ahead of the planned October launch of the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency and the Public Prosecution Service, when revisions to the Code of Criminal Procedure will strip prosecutors of their investigative authority.


bell@heraldcorp.com