Chonghaejin Marine News

A South Korean businessman wanted for nine years by authorities was extradited from the United States last Friday to face charges linked to one of the country's worst maritime disasters in which over 300 people, mostly children, were killed.Yoo Hyuk-kee was taken into custody on arrival from New York, where he had been fighting extradition to South Korea, where he faces embezzlement charges related to the company that operated the doomed vessel. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his bid to block the extradition.Yoo…

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Thursday rejected a bid by a businessman to block his extradition to South Korea to face embezzlement charges that stemmed from a 2014 ferry sinking that killed 304 people.Sotomayor rejected Yoo Hyuk-Kee’s request to prevent his extradition from going forward while he appeals lower-court rulings rejecting his effort to avoid being sent to South Korea to face trial on the seven embezzlement charges against him.Sotomayor is the justice assigned to review emergency appeals from a group of states that include New York…

Yoo had been target of South Korea's largest manhunt; Failure of police to catch Yoo had been burden for Park government. The body of South Korea's most wanted man, linked to the sinking of a ferry in April that killed 300 people, was identified more than a month after being found in an orchard, police said on Tuesday, with his book and empty bottles of alcohol nearby. The police chief in charge of the case in a small city in the south of the country was sacked on Tuesday for not recognizing the book, or putting two and two together, and for not identifying the corpse earlier. Police said that DNA and fingerprint evidence from the heavily decomposed body found on June 12 showed it to be that of Yoo Byung-un, 73, the target for more than two months of South Korea's largest manhunt.

The major shareholder of the South Korean operator of the ferry on which hundreds of high school students drowned in April has applied for receivership, a court said on Monday. Chonhaiji Co Ltd, a ship block maker and the major shareholder of ferry operator Chonghaejin Marine Company, lodged its application at the Changwon District Court last week, a court official said. Chonghaejin Marine owned the Sewol, which sank on April 16 on a routine journey between the mainland port of Incheon and the holiday island of Jeju. Of 476 passengers and crew on board, including 339 students and teachers from the same school, 172 were rescued with the remainder presumed drowned.

South Korea's biggest and most bizarre manhunt, linked to a ferry disaster in which hundreds drowned, has come full circle at the compound of a sect known for its organic ice cream as police on Thursday used earth movers to search for tunnels. Police have raided the grounds of the Evangelical Baptist Church in Anseong, a two-hour drive south of Seoul, twice as they try to flush out church co-founder Yoo Byung-un, 73, South Korea's most wanted man since the Sewol ferry sank in April killing more than 300 people, mostly children from the same school.

South Korea's biggest and most bizarre manhunt, linked to a ferry disaster in which hundreds drowned, has come full circle at the compound of a sect known for its organic ice cream as police on Thursday used earth movers to search for tunnels. Police have raided the grounds of the Evangelical Baptist Church in Anseong, a two-hour drive south of Seoul, twice as they try to flush out church co-founder Yoo Byung-un, 73, South Korea's most wanted man since the Sewol ferry sank in April killing more than 300 people, mostly children from the same school. But, so far, Yoo, a businessman and photographer who was once jailed for fraud, has eluded capture in a case which has become an embarrassment for authorities already under pressure for their handling of the disaster.

Parents of children killed when a passenger ferry sank last month led a sombre march on South Korea's presidential palace in the early hours of Friday morning, where they demanded to meet with President Park Geun-hye. Clutching memorial portraits of their children, family members and grieving parents were prevented by riot police from nearing the palace, and instead sat in the middle of the road where they sobbed, wailed and shouted in anger. "Listen to us, President Park. Just give us ten seconds!," one family member said, using a portable address system. "Why are you blocking the way?," said another. Seated on the ground in the middle of the night, they wore beige blankets and huddled in rows on the cold floor.

South Korean prosecutors are seeking the arrest of members of the family that owns the operator of a ferry that sank last month killing hundreds of school children, an avoidable tragedy that rocked the country to the core. Prosecutors may also seek the extradition of a son of the reclusive head of the family from the United States, an official said on Thursday. The Sewol, overloaded and travelling too fast on a turn, capsized and sank on a routine journey from Incheon on the mainland to the southern holiday island of Jeju. Of the 476 passengers and crew on board, 339 were children and teachers on a high school outing. Only 172 people have been rescued and the remainder are all presumed to have drowned.

The operator of the South Korean ferry that capsized and sank this month with the loss of about 300 lives was apparently being squeezed by competition from budget airlines and had to increasingly rely on its cargo business. The Sewol ferry sank on a routine voyage south from the port of Incheon to the holiday island of Jeju on April 16. Investigators have not determined the cause of the accident but media has reported that the ship was overloaded with cargo and it may have been poorly stowed. The ship was carrying 476 passengers and crew and had a capacity for 956. The Korean Register of Shipping, which tested and certified the Sewol, stipulated that it should be loaded with no more than 1,070 tonnes of cargo and passengers combined. It is not clear how much cargo it was carrying.

The frightened boy who first raised the alarm that a South Korean ferry with hundreds on board was sinking did not have time to call his parents, his father said, and was found dead not wearing a life jacket. Choi called the emergency 119 number which put him through to the fire service, which in turn forwarded him to the coastguard two minutes later. That was followed by about 20 other calls from children to the emergency number, a fire service officer told Reuters. The Sewol ferry sank on April 16 on a routine trip south from the port of Incheon to the traditional holiday island of Jeju. More than 300 people, most of them students and teachers from one high school on a field trip, have died or are missing and presumed dead.

South Korean investigators said on Friday that life rafts and escape chutes on a sister ship to a sunken ferry were not working properly. The Sewol ferry, weighing almost 7,000 tons, sank on a routine trip from the port of Incheon, near Seoul, to the southern holiday island of Jeju. Investigations are focused on human error and mechanical failure. More than 300 people, most of them students and teachers from the Danwon High School near Seoul, are dead or missing presumed dead after the April 16 disaster. The confirmed death toll on Friday was 181. Investigators seized a second ferry for checks belonging to the Chonghaejin Marine Co. (Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Nick Macfie and David Chance)

The family that has a major stake in companies that control the shipping operator whose ferry sank last week, likely to have killed hundreds, will take social and legal responsibility for the incident, its lawyer said. The lawyer did not say that the family was assuming liability for what he termed a "tragic accident" and said that the family had not been summoned by prosecutors. "Yoo and his family will take all legal and social responsibility for this tragic accident if they have to as major stakeholders of the company," Son Byoung-gi told Reuters. Yoo Byung-un is the founder of a company that went bankrupt in the 1990s and whose shipping assets now form part of Chonghaejin Marine Co. Ltd. that is owned by investment funds controlled by his two sons, Yoo Dae-kyun and Yoo Hyuck-ki.

A boy and girl trapped in a sinking South Korean ferry with hundreds of other high school students tied their life jacket cords together, a diver who recovered their bodies said, presumably so they wouldn't float apart. The diver had to separate the two because he could not carry two corpses up to the surface at the same time. "I started to cry thinking that they didn't want to leave each other," he told the Kyunghyang Shinmun newspaper on the island of Jindo on Thursday, near where the overloaded ferry went down last week. The parents of the boy whose shaking voice first raised the alarm that an overloaded ferry was sinking believe his body has also been found, the coastguard said.

Prosecutors investigating the fatal sinking of a South Korean ferry have raided the home of Yoo Byung-un, the head of a family that owns the Chonghaejin Marine Co. Ltd, the company that operated the ship. Kim Hoe-Jong, a prosecutor on the case, said Wednesday's raid was part of a probe into "overall corruption in management". Of the 476 passengers and crew on board the Sewol, 339 were children and teachers on a high school outing to the holiday island of Jeju. Only 174 people have been rescued and the remainder are presumed to have drowned. The confirmed death toll on Wednesday was 150. South Korean prosecutors and agencies tend to adopt a blanket approach in raids, rather than targeting specific lines of inquiry.

The company that owned the South Korean ferry which sank last week, killing possibly hundreds of people, sprang out of a shipping to cosmetics empire founded by a businessman who was jailed for fraud and then went bankrupt. The founder of the predecessor company, Yoo Byung-un, once likened his 1997 bankruptcy proceedings to a captain going down with his ship. An investment vehicle run by his two sons and its shipbuilding affiliate are now the majority owners of Chonghaejin Marine Co. Ltd, the operator of the ferry that capsized. There is no suggestion that last Wednesday's accident was in any way linked to the company's chequered history. But Yoo and his two sons have been barred from leaving South Korea as investigators seek to establish what led to the fatal sinking of the Sewol ferry.

It should have been plain sailing for a South Korean ferry carrying hundreds of children and their teachers on an outing to the sub-tropical island of Jeju, an annual trip for Danwon High School. The Sewol had 476 passengers and crew on board, including 339 children and teachers. It had an experienced captain, was navigating well-known waters and had passed its annual inspections since it was bought second hand in 2012 by Chonghaejin Marine Co. Ltd. But prosecutors believe the vessel capsized after turning at too high a speed. Sixty-four people are known to have died and 238 are missing, presumed dead, mostly children. In an arrest document…

South Korean prosecutors investigating a ferry disaster said on Sunday they would seek to extend the detention of the ship's captain and two other crew by 10 days as they tried to determine the cause of an accident that may claim more than 300 lives. The ferry, the Sewol, was on a 400-km (300-mile) voyage from Incheon to the southern holiday island of Jeju in calm weather when it turned, listed sharply and then began to sink early on Wednesday. The ship was being steered by the third mate, on her first passage helming through the waters, and the captain was not on the bridge at the time. Out of the 476 passengers and crew, 339 were pupils or teachers from a high school in Ansan, a commuter city outside Seoul.

Some relatives of the more than 200 children missing in a sunken South Korean ferry offered DNA swabs on Saturday to help identify the dead as the rescue turned into a mission to recover the vessel and the bodies of those on board. The Sewol, carrying 476 passengers and crew, capsized on Wednesday on a journey from the port of Incheon to the southern holiday island of Jeju. Thirty-two people are known to have died. The 69-year-old captain, Lee Joon-seok, was arrested in the early hours of Saturday on charges of negligence along with two other crew members, including the third mate who was steering at the time of the capsize. Prosecutors later said the mate was steering the Sewol through the waters where it listed and capsized - for the first time in her career.

Rescuers struggle with waves, murky waters; Captain faces charge of abandoning South Korean ferry. About 290 people still missing, many of them teenagers. Rescuers struggled with strong waves and murky waters on Thursday as they searched for hundreds of people, most of them teenagers from the same school, still missing after a South Korean ferry capsized 36 hours ago. Coastguard, navy and private divers scoured the site of the accident, about 20 km (12 miles) off the country's southwestern coast. Earlier, rescue teams hammered on the hull of the upturned, mostly submerged vessel, hoping for a response from anyone trapped inside, but they heard nothing, local media reported.

Rescuers struggled with strong waves and murky waters on Thursday as they searched for hundreds of people, most of them teenagers from the same school, still missing after a South Korean ferry capsized on Wednesday. Coastguard, navy and private divers scoured the site of the accident, about 20 km (12 miles) off the country's southwestern coast. Earlier, rescue teams hammered on the hull of the upturned, mostly submerged vessel, hoping for a response from anyone trapped inside, but they heard nothing, local media reported. The vessel, carrying 475 passengers and crew, capsized during a journey from the port of Incheon to the holiday island of Jeju. Coastguards recovered five more bodies late on Thursday, raising the death toll to 14 people.

The vice-principal of a South Korean high school who accompanied hundreds of pupils on a ferry that capsized has committed suicide, police said on Friday, as hopes faded of finding any of the 268 missing alive. The Sewol, carrying 475 passengers and crew, capsized on Wednesday on a journey from the port of Incheon to the southern holiday island of Jeju. Kang Min-gyu, 52, had been missing since Thursday. He appeared to have hanged himself with his belt from a tree outside a gym in the port city of Jindo where relatives of the people missing on the ship, mostly children from the school, were gathered. Police said Kang did not leave a suicide note and that they started looking for him after he was reported missing by a fellow teacher. He was rescued from the ferry after it capsized.

The captain of a South Korean ferry that capsized two days ago rushed back to the bridge after it started listing severely and tried in vain to right the vessel, one of the helmsmen on the ship said on Friday. A junior officer was steering the Sewol ferry when it capsized on Wednesday, leaving 28 people officially declared dead and 268 missing, almost all of them high school students. Divers are fighting strong tides and murky waters to get to the sunken ship but hopes are fading of finding any of the missing alive. "I'm not sure where the captain was before the accident. However right after the accident, I saw him rushing back into the steering house ahead of me," said Oh Young-seok, one of the helmsmen on the ship who was off duty and resting at the time.

Divers searching for survivors of a capsized South Korean ferry saw three bodies floating through a window of a passenger cabin on Saturday but were unable to retrieve them, the coastguard said, hours after the ship's captain was arrested. The ferry, carrying 476 passengers, many of them schoolchildren, and crew, capsized on Wednesday on a journey from the port of Incheon to the southern holiday island of Jeju. Some 174 people have been rescued and hopes were fading for those still missing. The divers saw the bodies in a submerged cabin where many of the children were believed to be trapped, but were unable to break the glass to retrieve them. No sounds have been detected from within the capsized hull, the coastguard told reporters.