South Korean Prosecutors Seek Arrest Warrant for Korean Air Chairman

Corruption is Everywhere

 - and it's completely trashed this once powerful South Korean family

By Wooyoung Lee 

Korean Air Lines Co. Chairman Cho Yang-ho appears at a prosecution office in Seoul on June 28, 2018, to undergo questioning over allegations of tax evasion, breach of trust and embezzlement. Photo by Yonhap

SEOUL, UPI -- South Korean prosecutors issued an arrest warrant Monday for Korean Air Chairman Cho Yang-ho for charges of inheritance tax evasion and embezzlement, among others.

Cho was summoned for a 15-hour questioning last week over such allegations at the Seoul Prosecutors' Office.

He has been under probe over suspicion that he evaded taxes for more than $45 million (50 billion won) in his inheritance of overseas properties from his father Cho Joong-hoon, the founder of Korean Air Lines, according to Yonhap.

Cho is also accused of paying his lawyer's fee from the company budget when his daughter Cho Hyun-ah, then the Korean Air vice president, was under trial over the notorious "nut rage" incident in 2014.

He also allegedly paid another lawyer's fee with the company fund when he was being investigated over a scandal, in which he received an unfair request to hire a lawmaker's relative in 2015.

Cho also faces an allegation of raising illicit profits from running a pharmacy.

It is the third time that a key member of the Korean Air founding family was called for an investigation and sought with an arrest warrant. Earlier, prosecutors requested arrest warrants for Cho's wife Lee Myung-hee for charges of illegally hiring foreign housekeepers, assault and verbal abuse.

Cho's daughter Hyun-min, the former vice president of Korean Air Lines' budget Jin Air, was also accused of assault from throwing a cup of water to a business meeting attendee.

The court, however, declined to issue arrest warrants for both mother and daughter.

You would almost think this family had made some powerful political enemies considering some of the charges leveled at them. Regardless of whether or not they have enemies, they seem to keep giving them ammunition to shot them with. Both daughters resigned from the airlines in April, and the father resigned in May (2nd story on link).