hankyoreh

July 16. (by Kim Jeong-hyo

By Kim Won-chul, staff reporter

On July 16, the prosecutors seized one piece of artwork and 7-8 other items from the house of former President Chun Doo-hwan, 82, in the Yeonhui neighborhood of Seoul. The move was part of an effort to collect some of the 167.2 billion won (US$149.93 million) in punitive fines that Chun has yet to pay.

The prosecutors also raided the homes of Chun’s eldest son Chun Jae-guk, 54; his second son Chun Jae-yong, 49; his daughter Hyo-seon, 51; his wife’s brother Lee Chang-seok, 62; and Son Chun-ji, 69, the wife of his younger brother Chun Gyeong-hwan, 71. In addition, the prosecutors searched twelve businesses, including Shigongsa, a publishing company where Chun Jae-guk is president, its affiliate company Herb Village, and BL Asset, which is headed by Chun Jae-yong.

The Seoul Central Prosecutors Office task force in charge of collecting the overdue money from Chun Doo-hwan and the foreign criminal affairs department (supervised by Kim Hyung-jun) sent Kim Min-hyung, head of the task force, and seven investigators to Chun’s house at 9 am to begin seizing Chun’s assets. Chun and his wife stayed inside the house and observed while the prosecutors seized items.

The prosecutors also sent 80 investigators to the house of Chun Jae-guk and to Shigongsa and Herb Village, where they seized internal documents and accounting records. Digital forensics agents, who are trained to access digital information on computers and mobile phones, also took part in the search.

“We carried out the search and seizure because there have recently been indications that assets have been siphoned off,” said a representative with the prosecutors. “The twelve companies that were searched are places where it is believed a lot of assets may be.”

Sources say that the prosecutors recently obtained evidence that Chun Jae-guk and his family were moving to hide their assets.

They are accused of setting up the paper company Blue Adonis on the Virgin Islands, a tax haven, in 2004, and hiding money there in a slush fund. In Aug. 2004, Chun Jae-guk registered himself as the sole board member of this paper company and listed the address as Shigongsa in the Seocho district of Seoul.

Shigongsa is a publishing company that Chun Jae-guk has been running since since purchasing it in 1990.

The prosecutors seized around 100 items, including expensive paintings and pottery from the twelve related companies. If it is confirmed that the items that were taken were purchased using Chun Doo-hwan’s money, the prosecutors will auction them off and add the proceeds to the public treasury.

The prosecutors were issued a search and seizure warrant by a court that made use of a recently passed law that addresses confiscation of goods connected with crimes by public servants (known as the Chun Doo-hwan punitive fine law). This is the first time that a warrant has been issued according to this law, which took effect on July 12.

In 1997, Chun Doo-hwan was ordered to pay a punitive fine of 220.5 billion won (US$197.73 million) on charges of sedition and bribery, but he has only paid 53.3 billion won over the past 16 years, 24% of the entire amount.

In 2003, after Chun stopped making payments on the fine, the prosecutors obtained an order from the court for Chun to disclose his property. They seized some of his property and auctioned it off.

When the prosecutors filed a petition for Chun to reveal all the assets in his possession, he said, “I only have 290,000 (about US$260) won in my bank account.” Chun received harsh public criticism for the remark.

Following the orders of prosecutor-general Chae Dong-wook, the prosecutors put together a task force in May and have been using material from past investigations to track hidden assets believed to belong to Chun Doo-hwan and his family.

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