Incheon District Prosecutors’ Office is investigating a large number of parents including “chaebol,” or conglomerate, families who used forged documents to enroll their children in schools for foreigners in Seoul.

As many as 60 people who bought forged documents from a broker to meet the requirements for enrolling their children in a foreign school are being questioned.

Under local regulations, children who have a parent with foreign citizenship are able to study at foreign schools. As foreign schools in Korea teach the curriculum in English, such institutions have become a popular alternative to sending children abroad in recent years.

The parents are said to have paid between 50 million won ($45,000) and 100 million won for forged passports and citizenship documents of South American and African nations.

So far the investigators have summoned two sons and daughter-in-laws of two former vice chairmen of local conglomerates. The prosecutors’ office is said to have found sufficient evidence to place one of the couples under official investigation.

In addition to those with connections to conglomerates, the majority of those the investigators plan to summon are said to be high-income professionals including lawyers and heads of large hospitals and investment companies.

By Choi He-suk (cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)