US seizes ex-president Chun's assets
Chun Doo-hwan
By Lee Ji-hye
The U.S. Department of Justice seized an additional $500,000 (508 million won) of assets, Wednesday, related to funds that former President Chun Doo-hwan embezzled during his term in office, which began after he seized power in September 1980 following a military coup.
The seizure was an investment made by Chun’s daughter-in-law, Park Sang-ah in a limited partnership with a Pennsylvania company, of more than $1.2 million (1.3 billion won) of the former president’s illegally obtained finances.
“Today’s seizure underscores how the Criminal Division’s Kleptocracy Initiative - working in close collaboration with our law enforcement partners across the globe, will use every available means to deny corrupt foreign officials and their relatives a safe haven for their assets in the United States,” Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell stated in a Department of Justice press release.
The announcement follows a prosecution filing made last month on Aug. 22, after a seizure warrant issued by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania was acted on late Tuesday.
“Chun Doo-hwan orchestrated a vast campaign of corruption while serving as Korea’s president,” Caldwell stated.
“President Chun amassed more than $200 million (220 billion won) in bribes while in office, and he and his relatives systematically laundered these funds through a complex web of transactions in the United States and Korea.”
In February, U.S. authorities seized California real estate sale worth $726,000 (738 million won) from Chun Jae-yong, Park’s husband and Chun’s second son, who purchased a house in Newport Beach in California in 2005, with funds allegedly obtained from the former president’s embezzled funds.
Along with being convicted for treason and murder, Chun was found guilty in 1997 of accepting bribes from Korean companies amounting to $200 million and ordered to pay restitution totaling 220 billion won ($212 million) by the South Korean Supreme Court.
U.S. prosecutors stated that Chun and his relatives allegedly laundered some of the money through a network of people, including relatives and shell companies in Korea and across the U.S.
Officials stated that the U.S. is working closely with the Republic of Korea’s Supreme Prosecutor’s Office – Anti-Corruption Supervisory Division, the Ministry of Justice’s International Criminal Affairs Division and the Seoul Central District Public Prosecutor’s Foreign Criminal Affairs Department to repatriate these corruption proceeds.