Police said Wednesday they have launched an investigation into alleged influence peddling involving Korea Meteorological Administration chief Cho Seok-joon in a contract bidding process.

The Seoul Metropolitan Police suspect Cho, along with Park Kwang-joon, chief of the Korea Meteorological Industry Promotion Agency, of providing favors to a specific contractor during bidding for Light Detection And Ranging (LIDAR) between June and December last year.

They allegedly changed the standard range of weather radar to favor Kweather, an equipment manufacturer, in addition to leaking relevant information, police said.

Kweather failed in the first bid as it did not meet the 15-kilometer standard range, but later won the contract after the required range was changed to 10 kilometers.

The police raided the offices of the KMIPA and the weather radar manufacturer on Wednesday and confiscated related documents.

The police were set to summon Cho, Park and the head of Kweather Kim Seok-dong for questioning soon.

The KMA denied its involvement in the subsidiary’s bidding process in a press statement.

By Kim Young-won  (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)