The prosecution arrested a former POSCO executive late Saturday night without a warrant for stashing away company funds at the steelmaker’s construction operation in Vietnam.
The ex-executive, surnamed Park, is suspected of having created around 10 billion won worth of slush funds and embezzling 4 billion won of them between 2009 and 2012 when he was leading the Vietnam project of POSCO Engineering & Construction as its overseas unit chief.
Park and POSCO E&C had argued that the funds were used as a rebate, paid to the builder’s subcontractors.
The prosecution plans to to ask the court to issue an arrest warrant Park to take him into custody, citing evidence that a large portion of the money had been utilized elsewhere.
The investigative agency has recently conducted a full-fledged probe into the case involving the slush fund scandal in Vietnam by raiding some of POSCO E&C subcontractors including Heungwoo in Busan.
