Prosecutors are also trying to track down 65-year-old Daewoo Group founder Kim Woo-choong, believed to be hiding overseas, to persuade him to return and face charges of using the illicit fund for bribery and other purposes during Daewoo's reckless expansion in the 1980s and 1990s. President Kim Dae-jung has said that cleaning up the murk financial transactions of big business is essential to boosting investors' confidence in the South Korean economy, which is still recovering from the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis.

(PTI)