Police on Wednesday banned the wife of Korean Air Lines Co.'s chief from leaving the country pending a probe into allegations that she verbally and physically assaulted company employees.

Police are investigating the string of alleged assaults by Lee Myung-hee, the director of Ilwoo Foundation and wife of Hanjin Group Chairman Cho Yang-ho, after numerous tips were lodged by employees of the national flag carrier and the group's hotel affiliate accusing her of the crimes.

Korean Air is the flagship affiliate of Hanjin Group, an airline-to-hotel conglomerate.

Lee is suspected of verbally insulting construction workers in May 2014, when one of the hotels owned by the family-run conglomerate was being remodeled for an expansion.

She is also alleged to have thrown blueprints at the workers, pointed fingers at them and obstructed their operations. She is also accused of committing similar verbal assaults against her chauffeur and other Hanjin employees.

In a statement released Wednesday, Korean Air made an apology for the physical assault that took place at the hotel construction site in Incheon, just west of Seoul. But the company denied a series of other allegations about verbal and physical assaults on employees of its own and from its partner companies.

Police said they plan to summon Lee for questioning over the allegations.

Police have obtained testimonies from the alleged victims and announced that Lee became a suspect in a criminal case as of last Friday.

The controlling Cho family of the country's biggest full service carrier has been under scrutiny for ballooning scandals involving its family members.

Cho's younger daughter, Hyun-min, is also being investigated for allegedly assaulting an advertising company official because she was not pleased with their work performance. Cho's eldest daughter, Hyun-ah, has already become infamous for the "nut rage" incident, in which she forced a flight back to the boarding gate at a New York airport in 2014 as she was upset about the way her macadamia nuts were served. (Yonhap)