Sokor authorities search ferry OWNER’S OFFICES
- OUTH OREAN AUTHORITIES SEARCHED THE OFfiCES OF THE COMPANY THAT OWNS THE SUNKEN FERRY ON EDNESDAY, BROADENING A CRIMINAL PROBE THAT HAS ALREADY ENSNARED 11 MEMBERS OF THE ILL-FATED SHIP’S CREW, ACCORDING TO A REPORT BY THE YESTERDAY.
Investigators also searched the offices of 20 organizations affiliated with Cheonghaejin Marine Co. as well as the home of Yoo Byung-eun, a billionaire whose family owns the company, said, citing a report from S J .
Yoo is popular in South Korea as the “millionaire with no face” because he rarely appears in public.
According to ’s research,Yoo also has an artistic alter ego Ahae as a photographer who has won international acclaim.
Through an investment vehicle and subsidiary, Yoo and his two sons are said to control the shipping company that operated the . Korean tax authorities said that under the family’s ownership, the ferry company has been struggling and reported a loss last year, said.
Days after the ferry sank, the company sent out its president to apologize, but not Yoo who was once apprehended before.
In 1987, he was a religious cult leader. More than 30 people from his group were found dead, bound and gagged in a factory outside of Seoul. Officials investigated the incident as a mass murder-suicide, but found no evidence tying the event to Yoo, said.
Prosecutors in the South Korean city of Busan are also investigating the private organization responsible for inspecting and certifying ships for the South Korean government, said, citing S .
Investigators are looking for any evidence of possible wrongdoing in relation to the Korean Register of Shipping’s safety inspection of the l, the news agency reported, citing an unnamed prosecutor.
Sewol was overloaded
On Tuesday, a Korean opposition lawmaker released data showing that the ship was carrying three times its recommended maximum cargo, although it remained unclear if that could have helped destabilize it.
In addition, President Park eunhye, who has been withering in her criticism of the crew, has also argued that cozy relations between regulators and shippers may have contributed to the disaster, one of South Korea’s worst in peacetime.
With a mounting list of errors that appeared to have contributed to the ferry disaster, maritime experts, the news media and regular citizens venting their anger on social media have begun to question what they describe as inadequate safety precautions and often lax regulation of businesses.
South Korea’s prime minister, meanwhile, cited specific problems that might have been addressed by better regulation, including suspicions that renovations to add more sleeping cabins made the ship top-heavy and more likely to keel over.
The country’s top newspapers reflected the growing sense of anger, and shock, over what they suggested was a lack of proper oversight.
“Are we a safe society or a third-rate people?” read one editorial headline in the J J newspaper. And the daily
J newspaper ran an editorial titled ry Korea,” in which it argued that Park should live up to her campaign promise to run an administration of safety.”
For years, outh Koreans called their country a land of disasters” after a lack of regulation or a cavalier attitude toward safety.
In 1993, an siana irlines et slammed into a hill not far from the site of the ferry accident, killing 68 people aboard. ater that year, an overloaded ferry sank, killing 292. In 1994, a bridge collapsed in eoul, killing 32. In 1995, about 100 died in a gas explosion, and around 500 in the collapse of a department store in eoul that was weakened after the owner violated building safety codes by adding a swimming pool at the top. wo years later, a Korean ir et crashed in Guam, killing 228.