The Justice Department announced Wednesday it had seized an additional $500,000 worth of assets belonging to South Korea’s disgraced former president, Chun Doo-hwan.
As part of the department’s intriguing titled Kleptocracy Initiative, officials revealed the asset seizure through a warrant unsealed in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
“Chun Doo-hwan orchestrated a vast campaign of corruption while serving as Korea’s president,” Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell said in a statement. “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.”
The newly unsealed warrant, dated Aug. 22, is for seizure of an investment by Chun’s daughter-in-law in a Pennsylvania limited partnership worth approximately $500,000. In February, Justice Department officials recounted, the department obtained a court order from the Central District of California seizing $726,000 in proceeds from the sale of a residence located in Newport Beach, California, that Chun’s son purchased in 2005 with proceeds allegedly traceable to his father’s corruption.
A former Army officer, Chun served seven years as president of South Korean, until 1993.
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