Prosecution Begins Seizure Enforcement Early This Year
Value Drops Due to Inability to Participate in Training and Competitions
New Owner Found After Three Failed Auctions
During the 'state affairs manipulation' scandal of the Park Geun-hye administration, a horse that Samsung provided as a bribe to Jung Yoo-ra, the daughter of Choi Seo-won (formerly Choi Soon-sil), was sold after four rounds of public auction. The winning bid was 73 million won, about one-tenth of the original estimated value of 700 million won.
According to Onbid, the public asset disposal system of the Korea Asset Management Corporation, the dressage horse 'Rousing 1233' auctioned by the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office was sold for 73 million won on the 18th. This came 2 years and 7 months after the court's confiscation order and about 5 months after the prosecution began the auction process.
'Rousing' is one of the three horses (Salsido, Vitana V, and Rousing) that Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong purchased for Jung Yoo-ra between 2015 and 2016. In January 2021, the court ruled that the payment for the horses was a bribe given by Lee to Choi's side and ordered the confiscation of Rousing, which had been returned to Samsung among the three horses.
Accordingly, the auction of Rousing should have started in February to March 2021, but the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, responsible for executing the confiscation, only recognized the related facts belatedly and began the auction process in March of this year.
The special prosecutor team led by Park Young-soo, which handled the investigation, did not have the authority to execute the confiscation and had to transfer the execution duties to the prosecution. It is reported that information related to Rousing was not properly handed over.
Since May, Rousing has been put up for auction at one-month intervals.
The first auction was conducted with a minimum bid of 104 million won but failed to find a buyer. In the second auction in June, the minimum bid was lowered to 93.6 million won but was again unsuccessful.
After the third auction in July also failed, the fourth auction, held from the 11th of this month, attracted three bidders and found a new owner. The winning bid of 73 million won is 58.4% of the appraised value of 125 million won set before the auction.
Originally, Rousing was a prized horse specialized in dressage, valued at 700 million won, but its value declined as it aged without training or competition participation after arriving in Korea.
Born in January 2007 in Germany, Rousing is a male Warmblood Westphalian breed. It came into Jung's possession at the most preferred age range (7 to 12 years old) in the European market but reached 16 years old without any notable competition record. Horses that win awards in competitions are generally under 18 years old, and the average lifespan of a horse is known to be 25 to 30 years.
The prosecution plans to remit the sales proceeds to the national treasury in accordance with relevant laws.
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