Prosecutors raided a state-run oil company Tuesday in their widening investigation into money-losing energy development projects for alleged embezzlement.
About 30 investigators stormed into the headquarters of the Korea National Oil Corp., the house of former KNOC president Kang Young-won and the Seoul unit of investment bank Merrill Lynch to search evidence related to the energy project probe, according to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office.
Along with steel giant POSCO, KNOC has been under a prosecution investigation for allegedly creating a slush fund and misusing state funds linked with their state-financed overseas projects.
The state audit agency, the Board of Audit and Inspection of Korea, has said the state-run oil firm suffered several hundred billions of won in losses in the shady deal to buy Canadian oil fields operator Harvest Operations Corp. in 2009.
The so-called energy diplomacy probe is widely seen as targeting several overseas energy development projects led by the former Lee Myung-bak administration. (Yonhap)
