Samsung’s absentee chairman embroiled in tax evasion probe
Seoul — Samsung Electronics chairman Lee Kun-hee was named by South Korean police on Thursday as a suspect in an 8.2-billion won ($7.5m) tax evasion case that involved the use of bank accounts held by employees. A series of scandals have dogged the family of Samsung, the country’s biggest business empire. The chairman’s son, Jay Y Lee, heir to the Samsung Group, was released from detention earlier this week after an appeals court halved his sentence for bribery and corruption to two-and-a-half years and suspended it for four years. The elder Lee has been in hospital since suffering a heart attack in 2014, and until his imprisonment Jay Y Lee had been regarded as the de facto head of the group. Police said the elder Lee could not be questioned due to his physical condition and Samsung declined to comment. "Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee and a Samsung executive managed funds in 260 bank accounts under names of 72 executives, suspected of evading taxes worth 8.2 billion won," the Korean ...
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