Prosecutors said Friday they were continuing their investigation into suspicions surrounding Cho Hee-pal, one the country’s biggest con artists, who allegedly died in China after hiding out in the country.
“It is unclear yet whether the suspect is really dead. So we plan to continue investigating him,” said an official at the Daegu District Public Prosecutors’ Office.
Cho had been accused of swindling thousands of investors out of some 3.5 trillion won ($3 billion) in the country’s largest pyramid scheme. The police said last month that the 55-year-old fugitive died of a heart attack in China late last year, providing a set of documents, including a death certificate issued by Chinese authorities, as evidence.
Victims of the scam and some experts raised doubts over the police announcement, claiming that the con artist may have faked his own death.
The Daegu prosecutors on Thursday indicted two of Cho’s accomplices, who were recently extradited from China, on charges of fraud.
They are now said to be chasing Cho’s right-hand man and No. 2 in the pyramid operation, who is also believed to be hiding in China.
An association of victims claims that the man, suspected to have handled money laundering for Cho, shuttled back and forth between Korea and China until very recently, which it views as another reason to doubt Cho’s alleged death.
By Lee Sun-young (
milaya@heraldcorp.com)
