April 25, 2024

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He is also suspected of taking 152 billion won from the state health insurance agency in medical care benefits by running a pseudo pharmacy near a general hospital in Incheon, west of Seoul, between 2010 and 2014.

But prosecutors did not charge him with evasion of inheritance taxes worth some 61 billion won over foreign assets because the statute of limitations ran out.

Cho’s family has been in trouble following revelations earlier this year that his wife and two daughters used physical and verbal violence against company staff and other people under their influence. His wife and the daughters have also undergone investigations.

Meanwhile, his youngest daughter Hyun-min, a former executive of Korean Air, avoided charges of assaulting an ad agency official.

She has been under investigation over allegations that she threw a cup of water at an advertising company official during a business meeting in March as she was upset after the manager failed to answer her questions properly.

Hyun-min is the younger sister of Hyun-ah, who gained notoriety for the “nut rage” incident in 2014. She forced a plane back to the boarding gate at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport because she was upset with the way her nuts were served -- in an unopened bag instead of on a plate.

By Song Seung-hyun and newswires (ssh@heraldcorp.com)