Public debt collector to open overseas offices

Korea’s state debt collector, the Korea Deposit Insurance Corp., plans to open overseas offices to help locate slush funds or other illegal money hidden outside the country by companies and businesspeople.

Preparations have been underway since the beginning of the year, with the United States, Cambodia and Australia, as likely candidates for the new offices, KDIC officials said Thursday.

The agency handles seizing properties of individuals and firms to help collect debt and so far has relied on private investigators hired in foreign countries to pursue assets hidden outside of Korea.

The KDIC investigators helped seek out real estate in the U.S. belonging to the actual owner of the Sewol ferry that sank and killed more than 300 people in April 2014. In another case, KDIC also retrieved $8 million through a lawsuit from a real estate broker who had hidden property in Cambodia.

Officials said working from Seoul, however, had its limits. The agency has uncovered $59.1 million in hidden assets overseas since 2007 and retrieved $13.9 million. But the cost of hiring private investigators and legal proceedings was equal to about 11 percent of the recovered assets, according to the KDIC figures.

(khnews@heraldcorp.com)