While President Park Geun-hye and the prime minister visited the scene of the accident, the owners of the marine company have not appeared in public.The owners, reported to be a 42-year-old surnamed Yoo and his brother have not responded at all to the ferry crisis. The two owners are sons of Yoo Byeong-eon, former CEO of the bankrupt Semo ferry cruise company, which operated boat trips on the Han River in Seoul until 1997.Yoo Byeong-eon was an evangelical pastor in Korea and a member of a religious cult, making him a suspect in the cult’s 1987 mass suicide-murder.
Last week, the Justice Ministry banned Yoo and Kim Han-sik, CEO of Chonghaejin Marine, from traveling overseas.Yoo reportedly was a friend of former President Chun Doo-hwan. Thanks to this relationship, he ran Semo Marine, which operated ferries on the Han River until it went bankrupt.He was also known as a pastor who led a Christian cult. He was sentenced to four years in prison in 1992 in connection with a mass suicide case, in which 32 followers of a different cult were found dead in a factory in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province. The cult's leader, Park Soon-ja, had close ties with Yoo.
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 Korea JoongAng Daily, regarding the reports since April 16, 2014, about the Evangelical Baptist Church (EBC) and Yoo Byung-eun, is publishing the following corrections and an excerpt from the rebuttal statement by the EBC.Correction & Rebuttal Statement by the Evangelical Baptist ChurchThrough three past investigations by the prosecution, it has been revealed that Yoo and the EBC, also known as the “Salvation Group” and Guwonpa in Korean, are not related to the Odaeyang mass suicide incident. That was also confirmed by the prosecution in its official statement on May 21. The prosecution’s investigation also found that Yoo had not made an attempt to smuggle himself out of the country or seek political asylum in France. We, therefore, correct the concerned reports.Yoo retired from his executive management position in 1997. He did not own any shares in the noted companies, nor had he managed operations or used the operating funds for personal reasons. There are no grounds to call him the actual owner and chairman of the company. As such, he did not provide any directives in regards to the overloading of the Sewol ferry or its renovation.It was verified that the captain and crew members who abandoned ship at the time of the Sewol ferry accident are not members of the EBC. It has also been verified that the EBC does not own any shares of Chonghaejin Marine Company and did not engage in its management. Rebuttal statementThe EBC’s position is that the museums in the United States and Europe can never authorize an exhibition unless the artistic value of an artist’s works is recognized by the screening committee, irrespective of the amount of money an artist donates. The EBC’s position is that the exhibitions were not a result of Mr. Yoo’s patronage or donation, and Yoo also has not coerced Chonghaejin and its affiliates to purchase his photos.The EBC states that Yoo did not participate in the foundation of the EBC in 1981, and the church does not offer him the title “pastor.” It also says a significant part of the 240 billion won ($206 million) worth of assets suspected of belonging to the Yoo family are real estate properties owned by the farming associations, which had been established by church members.The EBC states that there are certain churches in Korea that call the EBC a cult, solely based on differences between their’s and the EBC’s doctrines.But the EBC does not worship a particular individual as a religious sect leader or preach any doctrine that contradicts the Bible.
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.
A lawyer representing Yoo Byung-eon told the Chosun Ilbo on Thursday that reports that Yoo's assets total W240 billion are not true and he is only worth around W10 billion. ... Son said Yoo, a former chairman of Chonghaejin, has nonetheless "voiced his willingness to donate his entire W10 billion estate due to his deep sorrow for those who lost their lives aboard the Sewol."
While serving as a pastor in the 1970s, he established a toy company and practically forced members of the “salvation sect” to work there under poor working conditions. In a recent media interview, Chung Dong-seop, a former believer in the sect, said that Yoo preached that members would please God if they worked for the company run by the church.“Their working conditions were miserable. They worked long hours but received a tenth of the wages of the average workers at that time. Yoo accumulated a considerable amount of money by exploiting his workers and the fortune he earned like this was used as seed money for the construction of his business empire,” said Chung,who is now a pastor.
He's known as "the millionaire with no face." And South Korean officials apparently have questions for him...More recently, South Korean media accounts have identified him as a photographer and artist who goes by the name "Ahae."A biography on the site describes Ahae as the chairman of 123 Farm, an organic lavender farm on the grounds of the Highland Springs Resort in California. A 2006 Los Angeles Times article names Yoo as chairman of the board of a South Korean company that owns the resort.The biography also describes Ahae as an entrepreneur who once designed ships that traveled the Han River.True to Yoo's nickname, Ahae doesn't show his face on the website. He only appears from behind, photographing nature scenes in his trademark style -- out an open window of his South Korean studio.According the website bio, Ahae was born in 1941 in Japan, where his family was during Japanese colonial rule of Korea. That would make him 72 or 73. The biography describes Ahae as "an inventor, entrepreneur, philanthropist, environmental activist, martial artist, painter, sculptor, poet, and photographer."He also has an interest in farming. In addition to the California lavender farm, Ahae supervises two organic tea plantations in South Korea, according to the bio."Ahae has been a conservationist all his life and has done everything within his power to ensure that his business activities do not conflict with his endeavors to maintain the purity of the natural world," the biography reads. "His focus on organic products is a natural extension of his concern for the environment, and the individual in particular."
