A politician of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910), cited as one of the top collaborators to Japanese colonial government in the past century, accumulated at least 40 billion won (US$33.1
million) in the first 15 years of the Japanese rule on the Korean Peninsula,a government report said Thursday.
Lee Wan-yong's property 15 years after Korea's forced annexation to Japan was estimated at 3 million won, about 60 billion won in current value, according to a white paper published by a presidential panel investigating those who cooperated with the Japanese during the 1910-45 colonial period.
His assets were nearly three times what he had in 1910, according to the white paper.
Lee is one of the five "Eulsa traitors" who supported a 1905 treaty that made Korea a Japanese protectorate. In 1910, as pro-Japanese minister of Korea, he signed the Korea-Japan annexation treaty that placed Korea under Japanese colonial rule.
Much of his wealth was accumulated through land sales before and after the annexation, according to the white paper. He also received money from the Japanese in return for his cooperation, took bribes and embezzled from
the state coffer, it said.
The white paper showed that Lee received 100,000 won (worth 2 billion won in current value) as a reward for helping Japan force Korea's King Gojong to step down in 1907, and 150,000 won (3 billion won in current value) for
signing the annexation treaty.
He used the money to buy fertile rice paddies on the west coast, which during the early years of the colonial period amounted to 1,573 square
meters, almost double the size of Yeouido in Seoul.
However, there is almost nothing to confiscate since he sold most of the land that he had owned to a Japanese landlord, the white paper said.