Prosecutors said they are analyzing accounting books seized from the church, suspecting that the religious group has exercised influence over the company's management.

The church was established by chief Yoo's father-in-law, Kwon Sin-chan, in the 1960s and is led by Yoo. It is considered as a cult with some 20,000 followers, including most of the senior officials of Cheonghaejin's affiliates and most of the Sewol's crew.

Yoo was also previously a member of the religious cult called Odaeyang, making him a suspect in the cult's 1987 mass suicide-murder. More than 30 people from his group were found dead, bound and gagged in a factory outside of Seoul. Investigators, however, found no evidence tying the event to Yoo.

The Sewol was scheduled to leave Incheon at 6:30 p.m. on April 15. But other ships decided to remain in port that evening due to thick fog. Leaving port more than two hours past schedule, the Sewol was the only ship to sail out of Incheon that evening.

Once it got the green light to leave, the Sewol was overloaded with cargo, carrying 3,608 tons including large trailers, excavators, forklifts and passenger cars as against the permissible limit of 987 tons.

The crew are required to fasten cargo tightly, but that was largely ignored. The Sewol left port at 9 p.m., about 3 minutes after the last passenger got on board, which shows the crew did not spend much time securing the cargo. This excess cargo is largely believed to have caused the ferry to capsize.

The aging Sewol was an accident waiting to happen. ...

According to the prosecution, Yoo’s firms hired mostly the cult’s members and their sons and daughters. None of them have open recruitment programs.

Most of Sewol’s crewmembers, including the captain, Lee Joon-seok, are said to be members of the cult. Lee and a dozen other crewmembers were arrested for deserting the ship without taking measures to save the passengers.

Along with Yoo, many senior employees of Chonghaejin Marine including the captain of the doomed ferry are devout members of the Salvation Sect. Investigators suspect that the sect is a financial foundation for Yoo and his business entities.

Reports said that Yoo began his businesses to help members of his religious group to gain jobs and to increase his personal wealth. He reportedly made business funds from church members’ offerings and investments, and took out loans with his church’s real estates being held as collateral.

The sect was established in the 1960s by Pastor Kwon Sin-chan, Yoo’s father-in-law. It has been divided into three offshoots including the Evangelical Baptist Church.

The sect has some 100 churches in Korea and about 200,000 members worldwide. Unlike other Christian organizations, the group is alleged to focus little on repentance ― a reason why it is seen as a heretical cult.

Speculation is rampant that loyal members of the sect have been engaged in a large pyramid sales scheme. Investigators have raided the headquarters of Dapanda, a multilayered marketing firm employing loyalists from the sect.

With nearly 60 branches across the country, Dapanda sells various items ranging from cosmetics to health food and kitchen products. The firm is thought to have thrived and secured stable marketing routes with backing from the sect’s devout members.

According to Chonghaejin’s audit report for last year, the company spent just $521 on crew training, including evacuation drills. By comparison, a competitor, Daea Express Shipping, spent 20 times that amount.

One of the hallmarks of a cult leader is that they often take the role of parent to their followers – who have often been cut off from their own parents. Park Soon-ja, of the Paradise cult, was a prime example of this, as her disciples called her “Benevolent Mother”. She preached that the end of the world was nigh, but that she knew a way for her disciples to get to heaven without dying. She lived with her followers in her factory in Yongin, South Korea and they made Korean ornaments and toys for tourists. They rarely ventured out of the forest.

Trouble started brewing in 1987 in the form of a $8.7m fraud investigation, and on August 29th, Park Soon-ja, her 3 grown-up children, and 28 others were found dead inside the factory. They had been drugged and strangled in what appeared to be a mass suicide. And so ended the reign of Korea’s most notorious cult leader.

The Man Who Wants To Spiritually Connect With You — Through Your Body: This guy can take any scripture of any spiritual tradition and twist it to convincingly to mean that spiritual connection is best experienced through sexual connection. Selling teenagers into prostitution? Having multiple wives and mistresses? He’s got scripture to back it up.