Boss of Korean firm that gave Tony Blair secret cash was jailed for bribery



'A brilliant lobbyist': An unverified picture purporting to show Tony Blair and Choi which has appeared on South Korean blogs

The chief executive of a South Korean oil firm which secretly paid Tony Blair undisclosed sums of cash has reportedly served a two-year prison sentence for bribery after one of his country’s most notorious corruption scandals.



Kyu-Sun Choi, 49, was convicted of making illegal payments to influence the awarding of lucrative contracts to run a national lottery.



But after his release from jail he was accused of involvement in another case of financial impropriety, this time centred on an alleged attempt to buy his company a place in an oil exploration consortium in Iraq.



Mr Blair kept his deal with UI Energy Corporation secret for nearly two years after persuading the committee that vets the business appointments of former Ministers that the information was ‘market-sensitive’.



It only became public knowledge last week, after Lord Lang, the new chairman

of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, decided there were no grounds to conceal it any longer.



Mr Choi’s conviction and jail sentence were reported by the online service of a leading Korean newspaper, the JoongAng Daily.



The disclosure raises fresh questions about Mr Blair’s judgment. He has been accused of cashing in on his time in Downing Street by accepting consultancy deals with investment banks and global corporations, earning him an estimated £20million in the three years since he stepped down as Prime Minister.

Any suggestion of an association with a politician caught up in a corruption case will be particularly embarrassing for Mr Blair, who is now an international peace envoy to the Middle East.



South Korea was rocked by the scandal – known as ‘Choi-gate’ – in 2003. Mr Choi was convicted of taking bribes from firms wanting to run a national sports lottery.



The former lobbyist acted as a middleman between potential bidders and a son of the then South Korean president.

Choi with Iraqi workers in 2008 - he was investigated after the alleged attempts by UI Energy to join a South Korean government-backed consortium seeking oil exploration rights in the Kurdish region of Northern Iraq

Mr Choi was jailed for two years and fined more than £260,000.



But in 2006 he was investigated again after the alleged attempts by UI Energy to join a South Korean government-backed consortium seeking oil exploration rights in the Kurdish region of Northern Iraq.



Mr Choi was not prosecuted but an ex-member of parliament was given a three-year suspended jail term.



Mr Blair is understood to have been hired by the Koreans after meeting Mr Choi in the United States.



Business analyst Jungnam Chi, who runs a consultancy in the capital Seoul, said: ‘Mr Choi divides his time between the US and here. He is a brilliant lobbyist and likes to stoke up VIPs and luminaries.



‘He is present at parties for the rich and powerful. He uses his relationships to wheel and deal.’



Friends in high places: Choi with Iraq's President Jalal Talabani

Mr Choi is listed by the Korean stock exchange and on UI Energy’s website as overall chief executive and chairman. He seldom gives interviews and virtually nothing is known of his private life.



His firm’s headquarters has the slogan ‘Challenge the Future, Change the World’ on its frosted glass doors and windows.



A Mail on Sunday reporter who visited the building was told no one was available to comment.



Mr Blair informed the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments about his proposed tie-up with UI Energy in 2008.



Unusually, his new job was not revealed by the committee after he asked for it to remain confidential for three months due to ‘market sensitivities’.



When that period passed, the committee, then chaired by ex-Tory Cabinet Minister Lord Mayhew, asked for an update.



The committee wrote to him again in November last year, by which time Lord Mayhew had retired and Lord Lang, who also served as a Tory Minister, had taken over as chairman.



Last month Mr Blair asked for more time but was overruled.



Lord Mayhew said: ‘I don’t know why Mr Blair’s job wasn’t made known because I wasn’t on the committee any longer.’

A spokesman for Mr Blair said: ‘This was a one-off piece of advice given in August 2008.



‘The project was first discussed in July 2008, not before and not at any time while Mr Blair was Prime Minister. Mr Blair has no ongoing relationship with UI Energy and had no relationship with the company before summer 2008. The advice had nothing to do with Iraq or Kurdistan.



‘Mr Blair has no knowledge whatsoever of the allegations to which you refer. Mr Blair met Mr Choi briefly in late July 2008.’

Earnings so copious and complex he has 12 companies to handle them

Since giving up his Downing Street perch in 2007, Tony Blair has been jet-setting around the world, picking up fat cheques for pronouncements on the Middle East, the oil industry, the environment, indeed about any old subject.



He is estimated to have made £20million in less than three years. It should therefore have come as no surprise to hear he had done a spot of ‘consulting’ for the South Korean oil firm UI Energy Corporation, which has interests in Iraq, and the ruling family of Kuwait.



In my investigations into the ex-Prime Minister’s foolhardy road to war with Iraq for my book Blair’s Wars, I did not find compelling evidence of a stitch-up with the big energy multinationals.



American journalists point to specific links with the Bush administration but, as far as I am aware, Blair’s reasons for invading Iraq were not directly linked with its lucrative oil fields.



Rich: Tony Blair is thought to have raked in at least £20m since leaving Downing Street in 2007

Yet, for Blair so blithely to strike a deal with a Korean firm linked to Iraq a mere year after leaving office is a characteristic act of hubris.



Blair is not the only one. John Major entered into a deal with the Carlyle Group, one of America’s largest and best-connected private equity firms.



The ‘ex-presidents’ club’, as it is nicknamed, does particularly well in times of war.



Blair was made for this era of post-politics. The man who willed the truth to be whatever he thought at the time, the man who took politics-as-spin to a new level, was destined to be Britain’s first fully fledged Ambassador of Bling.



Forever coveting and courting the rich while running the country, he was also resentful of the fact that while he ‘languished’ in Downing Street, many in his new-found social circle easily out-earned him.



He sweetened the pill by holidaying in the luxury villas of the likes of Cliff Richard and the Bee Gees.



He also was delighted to be entertained by that paragon of virtue and probity, Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.



The only leader who came closer to Blair’s affection was the equally unprepossessing Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin.



Blair’s financial advisers are presumably pleased with his mixed portfolio.



Apart from contracts with sundry Koreans and Kuwaitis, he has had a consultancy with a US investment bank, JP Morgan, since January 2008, earning him £2million a year. Zurich Financial Services gives him an estimated £500,000 for similar services rendered.



Blair is reported to have been awarded even more than that figure for signing up with the prestigious Washington Speakers Bureau.



His earnings are so copious and complex that he is said to have established a network of up to 12 limited companies and limited liability partnerships.



These are rolled into the opaquely named Windrush Ventures No3 Limited Partnership which seeks to provide maximum tax ‘efficiency’ and minimum transparency.



All of this is bolstered by a pension of £63,000 a year, and an office allowance of £84,000.



Finally, there is the book. Blair has already pocketed a £4.6million advance for The Journey, to be launched this autumn. In order not to disappoint, he will have to come up with some extremely juicy revelations about his time in office.



Wherever he goes, Blair receives the private jet and VIP motorcade to which he feels entitled. Yet he does not always have it his own way.



In November 2007, he made a quick visit to the Chinese city of Dongguan.



He presumed he could waft in and out, giving his standard speech about saving the world.



Many in the audience were not impressed, particularly when they learnt he had charged £300,000 for the privilege. The local paper talked of his ‘money-sucking tentacles’.

He might have blanched at the temerity; but he picked up his cheque and has carried on regardless.



John Kampfner is author of Blair’s Wars and Freedom For Sale.

