U.S. Seizes Assets Traced to South Korean Ex-President
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Version 0 of 1. The United States Justice Department has seized $500,000 traced to former President Chun Doo-hwan of South Korea, who was convicted in a South Korean court in 1997 of accepting more than $200 million in bribes while in office from 1980 to 1988. The cash was seized from an investment in a limited partnership made by Mr. Chun’s daughter-in-law. The partnership funded Philadelphia-area economic development projects through a program that offered foreign investors United States visas in exchange for their investment of $500,000. The move brings the total amount seized from Mr. Chun’s family in the United States to $1.2 million. Mr. Chun “orchestrated a vast campaign of corruption while serving as Korea’s president,” said Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell in a statement issued late Wednesday. “President Chun amassed more than $200 million 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 April, the Justice Department said that it had sued in court to recover $700,000 in proceeds related to the sale of a home in Newport Beach, Calif., that Mr. Chun’s son bought in 2005 using funds said to be linked to his father’s corruption. Mr. Chun, a general who seized power in a 1979 coup, was convicted in South Korea in 1997 of receiving more than $200 million in bribes. He was sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted and he was released from prison. He and his relatives laundered some of the money through shell companies in South Korea and the United States, the Justice Department said. |