Body found in South Korea identified as head of ferry company


South Korean police said Tuesday that a badly decomposed body found last month had been identified as Yoo Byung Eun, the mysterious fugitive head of the company that operated the ferry Sewol, which capsized in April. Almost 300 people were killed in the accident. Yoo was wanted on embezzlement, negligence, and other charges. The body was found in a plum field near a retreat where investigators suspected Yoo was hiding — but the discovery has reportedly not clarified much so far. From The Washington Post:
[T]he circumstances of that discovery stirred almost as many questions as Yoo did in life. According to the AP, he was found face up in an apricot orchard, dressed in expensive Italian clothing, decomposing. Spread around him was a bottle of squalene, a shark liver oil derivative sometimes used as moisturizer. Two bottles of Soju rice wine. A bottle of "peasant wine." A magnifying glass. And an extra shirt.
How the 73-year-old died is unknown. Also unclear was why, if South Korean authorities have long had Yoo’s body, they apologized as recently as Monday for their failure to capture him. [The Washington Post]
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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.
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