The government launched a joint investigation team of prosecutors, military officers and government officials Friday in an effort to root out corruption in the country's defense industry. 

The move comes amid growing allegations of bribery and other underhand dealings between military officials and defense firms, as well as cozy relations between the arms procurement agency and retired service personnel at private defense companies.  

The special team -- composed of 105 prosecutors, military prosecutors, police and other related government agency officials -- will conduct investigations into irregularities involving defense contractors, prosecutors said.  

"Corruption in the defense industry is a chronic illness that not only brings losses to the state coffers but also weakens the national defense," said a prosecutor at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office.

The team will be headed by Kim Ki-dong, an experienced senior prosecutor, and joined by veteran investigators from seven different government agencies, including the tax agency, the financial watchdog and the customs office, prosecutors said. 

Kim, who heads the Goyang District Prosecutors' Office in Goyang, just north of Seoul, recently investigated a network of corruption involving the country's nuclear energy industry, they said.

"The team will devote all its resources to root out chronic corruption deals in the defense industry so that the people can be at ease with the national defense at the level of an advanced country," said Prosecutor General Kim Jin-tae.

The remark was made during a ceremony to officially launch the team that is headquartered at the Seoul Central Prosecutors' Office in southern Seoul.

The Board of Audit and Inspection will also form a separate monitoring team and the National Intelligence Service will create a special team to feed information to the joint task force, the prosecutors said.

The joint investigation team's first task will be expanding an ongoing probe into corruption linked to a faulty Navy ship that failed to participate in the national rescue operation for April's deadly ferry disaster, prosecutors said

Officials at the state procurement agency allegedly fabricated a document for the sonar system of the 3,500-ton Navy salvage ship Tongyeong. As a result, the ship failed to participate in the all-out rescue efforts that followed the April 16 ferry tragedy, in which more than 300 passengers died. Most of the victims were high school students on a field trip.

President Park Geun-hye earlier denounced corrupt dealings in defense acquisition programs as "actions serving the interests of the enemy" and vowed to impose "exemplary punishment" to root them out. (Yonhap)