ANSEONG: South Korean police yesterday arrested the brother of a South Korean businessman linked to a ferry disaster in April in which hundreds of schoolchildren drowned, as the net appeared to tighten around the fugitive’s family.
But Yoo Byung-un, 73, a businessman and photographer, is still on the run, eluding one of the country’s biggest and most bizarre manhunts for more than a month, centred on a huge church sect compound south of Seoul.
His elder brother, Yoo Byung-il, was arrested near the leafy compound in Anseong, where police are checking all passing vehicles and pedestrians. Yoo Byung-un’s daughter, Yoo Som-Na, has been held in France since May 28 after Interpol called for her arrest “for fraud and embezzlement.” She was denied bail on Wednesday
Yoo Byung-un is wanted on charges of embezzlement, negligence and tax evasion stemming from a web of business holdings centred on I-One-I, an investment vehicle owned by his sons that ran the shipping company, Chonghaejin Marine.
Chonghaejin owned the Sewol, which sank off the southwest coast on April 16 killing more than 300 people, many of them school children, on a routine journey from Incheon on the mainland to the southern holiday island of Jeju.
Yonhap news agency said the brother received monthly consulting fees from Chonghaejin and was arrested on charges of embezzlement and fraud-related real estate deals. Reuters
