North funds called a spy agency deal

A Korea Exchange Bank official who handled the transfer of cash to a North Korean account in Macao in June 2000, immediately before the inter-Korean summit, said yesterday he saw nothing as he processed the transaction to suggest that Hyundai Merchant Marine Co. was the sender. Baek Seong-gi, who was the manager of the bank’s foreign transactions at the time, said the transfer was made by the National Intelligence Agency to a North Korean account.
Lim Dong-won, the agency director at the time, has said that the spy agency’s role in the matter was peripheral and that it was merely facilitating the transaction.
Mr. Baek spoke to reporters after being questioned by the independent counsel’s office; it is investigating the transfer of $500 million, and more by some accounts, to North Korea immediately before the North-South summit meeting in June 2000.
Mr. Baek said there was nothing unusual in consulting with the spy agency or handling transfers, adding that the bank was not in a position to ask about such transfers. The recipient of the transfer was a North Korean organization in Macao, he said, but added that he and other bank officials did not know what organization it was. He does not know, he said, who the six persons are who endorsed the bank checks presented for the transfer, but said identification was included in the audit document the bank sent to the Board of Audit and Inspection.
Separately, independent counsel staff late Thursday carted away a personal computer and a shopping bag of documents from the house of the personal assistant to Park Jie-won, former President Kim Dae-jung’s chief of staff. A spokesman for the counsel’s office said the assistant is believed to have information about Mr. Park’s degree of involvement in the transfer. Mr. Park, who was the culture minister at the time, had contacts with North Korean officials in Southeast Asia before the summit.

by Kang Joo-an, Jeon Jin-bae