The prosecution on Wednesday sought an arrest warrant for a brother-in-law of former President Chun Doo-hwan for allegedly managing properties for the military dictator accused of taking large amounts of bribes while in office in the 1980s.

The move was taken as part of the prosecution’s efforts to collect the concealed assets of the former president who was ordered by the supreme court in 1997 to return to state coffers some 220 billion won ($196.8 million) he illegally accumulated through bribery.

Chun, who seized power through a coup, has yet to return some 167.2 billion won to the state.

Suspecting that Chun could be managing the stashed money with bank accounts opened under the names of his relatives, prosecutors have been zeroing in on Chun and his family members.

Chun’s brother-in-law, Lee Chang-seok, is suspected of having evaded taxes in a land transaction, in which he sold his 460,000-square-meter land to Chun’s second son, Jae-yong, at a price of just one tenth of an officially appraised land price in 2006.

Prosecutors suspect that the land might have been purchased with illegal funds from Chun. (Yonhap News)