A sign is placed between life jackets signifying the 304 victims of the sunken ferry Sewol during a protest demanding the resignation of South Korean President Park Geun-hye in Seoul, South Korea, January 7, 2017. The sign reads: “Arrest Park Geun-hye”. Photo by Reuters/Kim Hong-Ji
The businessman, son of an infamous South Korean tycoon, will be extradited from the United States on Friday to face charges of embezzling money from the company behind the Sewol ferry disaster in 2014, Seoul announced.
South Korea’s justice ministry said in a statement on Thursday that Yoo Hyuk-kee – son of Yoo Byung-eun, the de facto owner of operator Sewol Chonghaejin Marine Company – would be “repatriated to Istanbul International Airport. Incheon on August 4, 2023, at 05:20 (GMT 2020).
The 50-year-old scion, also known as Keith Yoo, is accused of embezzling around 29 billion won ($22 million) as Chonghaejin’s de facto controlling shareholder.
Yoo – believed to be a US green card holder – was arrested in New York in July 2020 after Seoul placed him on Interpol’s wanted list.
In an accident that shocked South Korea, the Sewol ferry sank off the southwestern island of Jindo in April 2014 with 476 people on board. Of the 304 people who died, 250 were students from the same high school.
Shock quickly gave way to outrage after it became clear the disaster was almost entirely man-made – the result of an illegal overhaul, an overloaded cargo hold and an unhealthy bond between the operators and state regulators.
Authorities say the Chonghaejin embezzlement affected the security of the ferry, as the stolen money would otherwise have been used to implement vital security measures.
Yoo’s father, Yoo Byung-eun, was blamed for the disaster and became the target of a massive manhunt in South Korea after he refused to answer a summons after the sinking.
The tycoon, who also led a religious group in addition to his substantial business interests, was found dead in a plum orchard two months later.
An autopsy of his badly decomposed body failed to determine the cause of death.
In 2019, a South Korean court awarded compensation to some survivors of the ferry sinking, ordering the government and Cheonghaejin to pay each survivor 80 million won ($61,000).
The court at the time held Chonghaejin, among other entities, liable for negligence, including its failure to properly check the ship before departure.
