The police raided the office of the Korea Food Service Federation, which is suspected of mobilizing members of

<Anchor> to pay support to lawmakers.

It has been a year and two months since the complaint was filed, and a forced investigation was launched.



Reporter Park Se-won reported.



<Reporter> This



is the office of the Korea Food Service Industry Association in Jung-gu, Seoul.



The police conducted a search and seizure for five hours yesterday (the 5th) and secured computer hard disks and documents.



The report was received in February of last year, but the police began a full-scale investigation after a year and two months of seizure and search.



Earlier, during the internal investigation, the police are known to have caught allegations that the National Association mobilized members from 2014 to recently to support politicians.



It is reported that the National Federation of Korea has been able to understand the circumstances in which the National Assembly sent an e-mail with the name and account number of a specific member of the National Assembly to the branch to induce support and to submit the receipt after paying the donation.



Under the current law, corporations or organizations cannot donate political funds with group-related funds, and unfairly arranging donations using employment relationships is prohibited.



It is known that many politicians who are mentioned for sponsorship include many influential lawmakers in the restaurant industry.



A police official said, "The political parties belonging to the lawmakers targeted for sponsorship are diverse."



While the National Federation did not give an official position, a former executive said in a call with SBS that there was no so-called 'split sponsorship'.



[Former senior executive of the Korea Food Service Federation: I have sent (donation money) several times...

.

They paid for themselves...

.

(The Federation) Do you want me to ask for donations?]



The police plan to summon officials from the Federation as soon as the search and seizure analysis is finished.



(Video coverage: Hyung Yoon, Video editing: Kyung-Yeon Kim, CG: Jong-Jeong Lee)