Police have requested the Justice Ministry to ban some 10 people including former Vice Justice Minister Kim Hak-ui from leaving the country pending an investigation into their involvement in an alleged sex-for-favors scandal.

“(We have) requested travel bans (on 10 figures including Kim) because (we) need to do so for further investigations and we have identified substantial criminal charges,” an official said. The official declined to name the other figures the police have sought for the overseas travel ban and on what charges.

The move indicates that the investigators have secured statements and circumstantial evidence to prove that the officials have peddled their influence to a local contractor, who reportedly has been bribing them for business favors.

The 51-year-old contractor, surnamed Yoon, is accused of filming officials and others having sex with women he hired for the purpose. Sources say that he might have used the footage to blackmail the officials for business favors. Yoon and his collaborators have been banned from leaving the country since last week. The police have also been looking into how the contractor went on doing business without being punished even though he was accused of several criminal charges.

Kim, appointed by President Park Geun-hye to the vice ministerial post earlier this month, resigned on March 21 after his name was disclosed by news media as one of the figures that received sexual services in exchange for exerting his influence. Kim denied the allegations, but his resignation dealt a fresh blow to the Park administration at a time when several of Park’s nominees had with drawn and others faced pressure to quit over ethical misdeeds.

If the Justice Ministry imposes a travel ban on officials including Kim, they will be investigated as suspects. Investigators are expected to summon those figures soon as well as examine their financial records. Officials are planning to seize evidence from their offices or homes if necessary. The police have so far secured statements from women hired to perform sexual services to high-ranking officials and other public figures.

Sources say that the police requesting a travel ban on key figures also indicates that the scale of their investigation has been developed from its preliminary stage to a mandatory probe.

But the police are under pressure to prove the criminal charges against the high-ranking officials, who reportedly include some from the government, the prosecution and even the police.

After checking Yoon’s phone records, police said that he had frequently called about 10 offices of the prosecution and the police between 2011 and 2012.

By Cho Chung-un (christory@heraldcorp.com)