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By Jun Ji-hye
One of the many suspicions surrounding President Park Geun-hye's scandal-ridden confidant Choi Soon-sil is that she might have managed hidden property for Park.
Those who raise this suspicion, including some opposition lawmakers, say Choi ― as her late father did in the 1970s ― easily collected large amounts of money from conglomerates in the form of "donations," reportedly with the help of Park's aides.
People's Party floor leader Rep. Park Jie-won alleged Thursday that Park even called in the heads of conglomerates to Cheong Wa Dae and forced them to donate money to foundations allegedly controlled by Choi.
The exact amount of Choi's whole wealth is unknown, but looking at real estate transaction information that has been made public so far, the 60-year-old is believed to have accumulated about 30 billion won ($26 million).
Some observers say the total value of property possessed by the Choi family, including her sisters and a daughter, would be hundreds of billions of won. The Choi family was reportedly poor before establishing a relationship with Park in the 1970s.
Choi, the daughter of Park's late mentor, Choi Tae-min, first met Park in the mid-1970s when she was acting as first lady, and has played the roles of companion as well as personal secretary.
Choi is now at the center of controversy after the revelation that she reviewed Park's speeches ahead of their delivery dates and had access to classified material related to national security, which critics argue violates the law governing the security of confidential presidential records.
The suspicion that Choi has been a hidden manager of Park's property was first raised by former lawmaker Lee Jae-oh in 2007. He was a key campaigner for Lee Myung-bak, then a runner in the primary to pick a presidential candidate for the Grand National Party (predecessor to the current ruling Saenuri Party). Park was a rival candidate in the primary, which Lee eventually won.
"The prosecution should disclose the real owner of Choi and her husband Chung Yoon-hoi's property," Lee Jae-oh said at a news conference then. "Choi was penniless, but now has tens of billions of won in property. The suspicion that Choi was a borrowed name should be clarified."
A similar suspicion was also raised during a party hearing to verify the qualifications of presidential candidates in the same year. In response to a question about whether Choi accumulated tens of billions of won while operating the Yookyoung Foundation, a scholarship foundation for children started in 1969 by Park's mother, Park called "it an absolutely unreasonable remark."
Choi currently owns a building in Seoul's rich Gangnam area with an estimated market value of about 20 billion won. She lived on the sixth and seventh floors of this building just before the 2012 presidential election when Park was elected president.
Choi also possesses the 230,000 square-meters of land in PyeongChang, Gangwon Province, whose value is estimated at about 1 billion won. She also owns a hotel and three houses in Germany.
It has been known that Choi's sisters have buildings whose market value is estimated at tens of billions of won.
In the 1970s, Choi's father made Park an honorary president of a social organization he set up to "save the nation." Then he made his daughter, who was at the time studying at Dankook University, president of the organization's university students.
The organization mainly ran volunteer activities, but also had commercial interests, receiving a large amount of "donations" from conglomerates including Hyundai Group.
This seems very similar to the fund-raising method used to establish the Mir and K-Sports foundations in October of 2015 and in January this year, respectively.
The two foundations, which are allegedly controlled by Choi, received nearly 80 billion won from conglomerates including Samsung Electronics. Why the foundations were established is not yet clear, but the opposition parties claim that they were apparently intended to be home bases for Park's post-presidential activities.
Rep. Lee Dong-sup of the People's Party said that the two foundations seem to be similar to one that the Chun Doo-hwan administration established in 1984 under the name of supporting families of victims killed in a North Korean terrorist attack at a national cemetery in Yangon, Burma, in 1983. But it was later known that the foundation was intended to prepare for Chun's retirement. At the time, his administration collected about 60 billion won from conglomerates.
