Kim Sun-yong, the second son of former Daewoo Group chairman Kim Woo-choong, was found to have purchased a country club in Vietnam through a paper company he established in an overseas tax haven, a group of journalists claimed on Thursday.
The Korea Center for Investigative Journalism, locally known as Newstapa, said that the junior Kim holds a 100 percent share for the luxury Vietnamese golf course called “Van Tri Golf Club.” Former chairman Kim is known to play golf there, Newstapa added.
Newstapa said that the junior Kim obtained the country club through Noble Assets, a ghost company that he set up in an overseas tax haven. The news organization did not disclose the tax haven country.
The move reflects an immense moral hazard of the Kim family, the media outlet added, as former chairman Kim was ordered to pay the state a 17.9 trillion won penalty in November 2006. He has paid only 88.7 billion won.
He was sentenced to an eight-year prison term for embezzlement and accounting fraud in 2006, but was released after special presidential pardon in 2008.
