I Got the Almighty Tongue - Chapter 55



Only Noblemtl

In the dark

After the party, I returned home and took a moment to collect my thoughts.

You can’t arrest a tycoon just for the attempted distribution of a composite photo. Even if you report it to the police, it will be treated as a secretary’s misconduct, and you won’t even be able to see Choi Sung-jin’s hair.

But would Choi Sung-jin, who planned such a thing at a pre-wedding party, stay still after marriage? There is a high possibility that he will carry out a clever and meticulous plan to destroy the family. His unreasonable obsession with Soo-hyun may be a reflection of his inflated ego that he must have whatever he wants.

I can’t forgive Choi Sung-jin.

There is only one way to get the chaebols into trouble: money.

Among them, Choi Sung-jin has a big weakness in creating and using slush funds. I am an expert in this field.

Every slush fund has a weak link. The prosecution knows about it, but they don’t investigate. They also know that it is impossible to run a company, especially a construction company, without slush funds.

Why can’t we run a construction company without slush funds?

There are too many expenses that cannot be recorded in the books. It is no secret that construction companies lobby to win construction contracts. Even Singapore, a country famous for its clean civil servants, is no exception.

In the United States, lobbying is legal and lobbying funds can be counted as public expenditures, but domestic law prohibits this.

What if government permits are obtained through FM without lobbying? The construction period will be longer than that of competitors, which will lead to a decrease in price competitiveness.

If you start digging the ground and construction, but nearby residents gather and occupy the construction site as a group, saying it’s noisy? You have to pay them to let them go.

All of these expenses are expenses that cannot be documented. Naturally, they cannot be included in the construction cost. In the end, they have no choice but to be treated as slush funds.

That is why the prosecution knows it is illegal, but they do not investigate it because they judge it to be necessary for running the company.

So what kind of slush funds are being investigated?

There are two ways. One is to split the slush funds raised in cash into hundreds of fictitious accounts and send them to paper companies in tax havens. Afterwards, the money, which has been laundered several times, is returned to Korea in the form of an investment corporation called a private equity fund.

And the money that comes in like that becomes funds for illegal inheritance or securing friendly interests. This is clear embezzlement and breach of trust.

Another case is when the owner uses the slush funds for personal gain. The prosecution will not be lenient when someone buys a building of their own or uses the slush funds as if they were their own money and lives a luxurious life.

Sungjin Choi falls into both categories. However, in order to link the slush funds to Sungjin Choi, an insider’s report is absolutely necessary.

For several years, major accidents have been occurring one after another at Royal Group construction sites. Last month, a large crane collapsed, and a worker died after being hit on the head by a falling rock because the quality of the safety helmet did not meet the standards. This incident was later covered in the state audit, and Choi Sung-jin was summoned to give a statement.

After investigation, it was concluded that the cause of this incident was a lack of safety measures due to embezzlement, and the person responsible was arrested.

It was a tail-cutting incident. I remember watching it closely because it was related to my sister’s family.

The absurd fact is that the person in charge is the one who has constantly raised issues about this matter. He has constantly suggested internally that it is inevitable to create slush funds, but we should not touch the safety costs. He testified to this at the National Assembly inspection and presented specific evidence, but his cries ended up as a silent scream due to Choi Sung-jin’s lobbying, and he was arrested.

Deputy Director Ahn Jun-mo.

We should start with this person.

* * *

In the dead of night, the car of the deputy chief stops in a deserted alley. He opens the door, gets out, and unloads his luggage from the trunk. He begins to move the luggage, which looks like daily necessities and a sack of rice, one by one in front of the semi-basement door of a shabby apartment building.

After moving all the luggage by going back and forth several times, he smokes a cigarette in front of a telephone pole and quickly returns.

“Does that make you feel better?”

Through a detective agency, I found out that he delivers items to three households once a week, probably the homes of workers who died in accidents.

“Who are you?”

He looks at me with surprise and steps back, wary.

Before I met him, I had a moustache and a bob cut. With glasses and a hat, my impression was completely different.

“Don’t be so surprised. Let’s talk for a moment.”

“I have nothing to say.”

He’s the guy who whistle-blowered. He wants to talk.

“Then, do you plan to continue to relieve your guilt by giving rice to your remaining family members?”

He flinches when he hears me. Then he follows me with a gloomy expression.

“How did you know and come here?”

He was afraid that someone might see him. He got into the car and continued the conversation.

“Don’t worry, I have no intention of saying anything to Mr. Ahn. He was just carrying out his assigned duties. There is no construction company in heaven that does not have slush funds.”

“It seems like you know everything.”

He looks resigned.

“But wasn’t it really necessary to create slush funds by cutting safety management costs?”

“Ugh..”

He takes out another cigarette and lights it.

“Are you a reporter?”

“I’m not a reporter, but I guess you could say I’m an insider. I’ll definitely send you the article. So feel free to talk.”

“If the article comes out, I will definitely be fired. I might even be sued. I have a family to support, so I can’t do anything unreasonable. I believe you understand.”

You must have been doing something you didn’t want to do for so long because you have a family. I need to relieve you of this burden.

“If you work until retirement age, how much money will you earn? Including retirement pay?”

“It must be a considerable amount. Why do you ask?”

“I’ll give you a lump sum in exchange for handing over all the evidence regarding the slush fund. And you won’t be sued. Royal Group is going to be quite busy from now on.”

“Who on earth are you to be doing this?”

“It doesn’t matter who I am. What matters is that I am someone who can stop safety accidents at Royal Construction as the CEO wishes and pay a large sum of money.

“If you give me a fictitious account number, I’ll send it to you right away. I’ll send the money from overseas. Since you’re in charge of slush fund work, this shouldn’t be a problem, right?”

He took a deep drag on his cigarette, blew smoke into the air, and began to speak.

“The company wasn’t like this from the beginning.

Since CEO Choi Sung-jin took office, things have gotten worse. At first, they inflated labor costs. Two thousand people were paid wages at a site where one thousand people worked. Then they started inflating material costs. They overestimated the quantity, and even the high-quality materials listed in the specifications were changed to low-quality materials and delivered.

Now, they even touch safety management costs. All the construction sites that Royal Construction is currently working on are hell.”

He has a relieved face and denounces the behavior currently taking place on the scene.

“The house where you just left the rice must be one of the victims, right?”

“He was my brother and I. He died while working at a construction site a while ago. He fell to his death. When digging at a construction site, they put up a fence and cover it with a lining board. That’s the minimum safety that needs to be ensured, but they didn’t even do that properly. The fence was flimsy and the lining board was of poor quality. That’s how it ended up.”

“Aren’t you going to compensate me?”

“They only asked me to pay 12 million won as compensation. It’s compensation, not an industrial accident. The Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service and the dedicated labor attorney are all in cahoots, so they won’t make an industrial accident judgment.

In cases like this, the manual is to blame it on the worker’s negligence. They throw them some consolation money and threaten to withhold it if they refuse to sign, so those who don’t have it can’t do anything.”

“How much slush funds do you have?”

“In the past, we raised only the amount needed to run the company. It was about 100 billion won per year. Now, it will be at least four times that amount.

“There are over 100 construction sites currently underway at Royal, and the law stipulates that safety management costs be set at 1.88% of the total construction cost. A significant portion of that goes into slush funds. If you add inflated labor and material costs, it would be even higher.”

“Where do you send your slush funds?”

“There is a bank account managed by the company. My job is to send money there. But I know who manages the money.”

“Do you have all the information?”

“I have some data that I have been collecting for several years. I will give it to you all, so please, please make sure that something like this doesn’t happen again.”

“If you prepare a clean account under another person’s name by tomorrow, I will deposit the reward. Bring all the documents you have.”

I copied dozens of the materials and files he gave me. I wrote down as much as I could remember about the real estate owned by Choi Sung-jin, which was bought and sold with slush funds, and the details of the slush funds flowing into the Choi family. I also attached the circumstances of his securing friendly shares and evading inheritance taxes through overseas private equity funds he created with slush funds.

I wonder what Choi Sung-jin’s abilities are.

I quickly sent the copied materials to lawmakers from both the ruling and opposition parties, media outlets, and prosecutors who are known for their integrity. The first person to eat is the owner, so will everyone remain silent?

* * *

“What the hell is going on! Why is our internal company information being leaked to every media outlet?”

Choi Sung-jin yells at the chief secretary with a flushed face.

Newspapers that had placed advertisements contacted us all at once. The news was that Royal Construction’s slush fund ledger and its details had been anonymously distributed to all major media outlets.

“I’m sorry. I’m trying to contact you to find out what happened.”

“I also got a call from Rep. Lee Yang-rok’s office saying that an anonymous tip had arrived. It means that the same materials are floating around the National Assembly!”

“Let me check the facts first.”

“Where is Secretary Cho?”

“That… It seems like the job I asked you to do at the party went wrong. I’ve been sued for violating the Sexual Violence Punishment Act, so I’m at the police station right now for questioning. It seems like Park Jin-joo has changed her mind.”

“No! These idiots can’t do anything right. If my name comes up in there, you can figure it out yourself.”

“That’s not possible.”

Ring ring ring

Seongjin Choi nervously takes out his cell phone, looks at the caller ID, and answers the call.

“hello.”

-This is Kim from the Western District Prosecutors’ Office.

“What’s going on now? I’m already out of my mind.”

-You’ve already heard the news. The prosecution has also received information on President Choi’s slush funds. They only sent it to the losers. It’s hard to cover it up because there are many prosecutors who are coming forward to investigate.

“Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? Aren’t you going to be a legal advisor after you retire?”

-If I could, I would have done it earlier. First of all, it is inevitable that an investigation will begin. I think it would be best to aim for reducing the sentence as much as possible.

“Sentence? Are you telling me to go to jail now?”

– We will know once the investigation is underway. Too many workers died at construction sites. The embezzlement of safety management costs is a serious problem. The embezzled funds are also leaked to Royal’s fictitious account, which the prosecution is watching, so the situation is not good. I heard that the political world is also preparing to make an issue out of this. You should prepare thoroughly.”

“Fuck, kid!”

Kwaaang

Choi Sung-jin couldn’t control his anger and threw his cell phone against the wall.

“Who the hell are you!”

Choi Sung-jin was delirious because he couldn’t figure out who was ensnaring him in the dark with clear malice.

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