[Yonhap Photo]
The jailed crony of President Park Geun-hye and her relatives are suspected of holding confirmed personal wealth worth 214 million US dollars, investigators said Monday, suggesting there could be hidden assets amassed illegally.
Choi Soon-sil's personal wealth stands at some 22.8 billion won ($19.8 million), a team of special investigators said after wrapping up their probe into a corruption scandal involving the suspended president and aides.
Choi's relatives are suspected of holding assets estimated at 223 billion won, the team said, adding it has yet to find concrete evidence that their wealth was illegally accumulated.
A court has been asked to forfeit some 7.7 billion won Choi illegally earned from Samsung, it said, calling for an extra probe by state prosecutors into hidden assets amassed illegally by Choi and her family at home and abroad.
"Our investigation has not been done completely," team leader and special counsel Park Young-soo told reporters, suggesting Park and aides should be investigated further on charges of bribery, influence-peddling, and abuse of power.
Park and Choi have maintained a hotline using illegal mobile phones for secret dialogue 573 times between April and October last year, he said. South Korea bans the use of phones under borrowed names and violators can be punished with up to three years in prison or up to 100 million won in fines.
A presidential aide was indicted for opening dozens of mobile phone accounts with borrowed names for Park, Choi and presidential officials out of concerns about wiretapping.
The aide was also accused of helping Park receive unauthorized beauty shots eight times, but investigators failed to address questions over her alleged absence for several hours when the ill-fated Sewol ferry packed with high-school students sank off the southwest coast in 2014 with the loss of more than 300 lives.
Park was impeached by parliament partly for neglecting her duty to supervise a rescue operation during the disaster. Government officials and coastguard authorities were criticized for failing to take quick steps.
Lim Chang-won = cwlim34@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
