Police have formed a team and launched an investigation into whether political figures accepted money and gifts from the Unification Church.

The 23-member team under the National Office of Investigation's (NOI) Special Investigation Division began reviewing related files transferred from a special counsel team investigating former first lady Kim Keon-hee on Thursday.

The team has already begun scheduling suspect interrogations, given that the seven-year statute of limitations for certain Political Funds Act violations will run out at the end of this year.

The investigators are also looking into applying bribery charges, the statute of limitations for which is 15 years.

Earlier, Yun Young-ho, the church's former second-in-command, told the team that he'd given gifts to politicians from both political parties.

Yun told the team in August that he'd given Oceans Minister Chun Jae-soo two luxury watches and tens of millions of won in cash while serving as a Democratic Party(DP) lawmaker between 2018 and 2020.

Yun testified that he'd sought Chun's support for the church's push to construct an underwater tunnel connecting South Korea and Japan.