[Anchor]

When a forest fire occurs, restoration projects are carried out to cut down burnt trees and plant new ones. However, we reported last May that this business had devolved into a money-making scheme for unqualified ghost forestry corporations. Following our report, a government investigation has uncovered a massive number of problematic firms, totaling around 900.

Noh Yujin reports.

[Reporter]

[SBS 8 News, May 4: There were forestry corporations that only sought out forest fire sites across the country, establishing ghost companies to secure business rights before disappearing.]

Following the report, the Korea Forest Service and the Anti-Corruption Initiative Task Force of the Office for Government Policy Coordination conducted an intensive investigation into 1,901 forestry business corporations nationwide.

Excluding firms that had already closed or whose locations were unclear, investigators examined approximately 1,400 companies, and illegal activities were confirmed or suspected in a staggering 900 of them.

This means problems were found in two out of every three companies investigated.

[President Lee Jae-myung (Yesterday, Cabinet Meeting): We conducted an investigation, and it appears that about 900 of them are problematic. Korea Forest Service? (Yes, it is data from the Korea Forest Service. That is correct.) It is an absurd situation. Why were the Korea Forest Service and the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs unaware of this until now?]

The methods used by the firms were deceptive, to say the least.

Circumstances were uncovered where companies hired employees who lived too far away to commute, or paid abnormally low wages while merely borrowing their names.

Investigators even found a technician who was simultaneously registered as an employee at four different corporations in different locations.

[Industry Insider: Go visit these companies. They are almost all paper companies.]

The Korea Forest Service has requested investigations into 78 companies and 165 technicians for illegally lending technical certifications or violating regulations against dual employment, and has initiated administrative procedures such as the revocation of qualifications.

This stands in stark contrast to last year, when they investigated over 2,700 firms but failed to uncover a single case of illegal certification lending, claiming that the transactions were too secretive.

The Korea Forest Service announced that it would continue joint investigations with local governments until the end of next month to root out structural corruption in forest fire restoration projects.

(Video reporting: Kim Seung-tae, Video editing: Kim Jong-tae)