Seoul Court Approves Arrest Warrant for Samsung Heir Lee Jae-yong

Samsung’s vice chairman Lee Jae-yong has been arrested by South Korean police after prosecutors claimed to have secured new evidence against him in a long-running bribery case.

Earlier in February, prosecutors searched the offices of the antitrust agency, the Korea Fair Trade Commission, and financial regulator, the Financial Services Commission, as part of their investigation of Samsung Group. Lee and several other company executives were first questioned last month, but a court had rejected a special prosecutor’s first request to issue an arrest warrant for him, citing the inadequacy of evidence.

“We will do our best to ensure that the truth is revealed in future court proceedings”, Samsung said in a statement Friday after the judge approved the arrest warrant for Lee.

Lee started out at Samsung Electronics in 1991, working his way up to vice chairman in 2013.

The incident with Samsung’s leader will give the South Korean government 10 days to indict, but extensions are often requested to include an additional 10 days. Lee Kun-hee has also been arrested twice on bribery charges; he was acquitted on both occasions.

Lee admitted that Samsung transferred funds to a company and foundations controlled by Choi Soon-sil, President Park’s secretive friend, but denied allegations that he expected to win any government favors. Last month, a court said there was not enough evidence to justify Lee’s arrest at that point.

However, after about three weeks of additional investigations, they leveled more charges against Lee for allegedly hiding criminal proceeds and violating the law on transferring property overseas in the process of giving bribes to Choi, who is now in detention, Yonhap said. She became the first president in South Korean history to face a criminal investigation as a primary suspect. This was a memo composed after Park Sang-jin, president of Samsung Electronics and head of the Korea Equestrian Federation, met Choi Sun-sil in Germany on Sep.

The merger in 2015 of Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries was opposed by many investors who said it wilfully undervalued the former unit’s shares. As of today, Lee is South Korea’s fourth-richest person with a net worth that FORBES estimates at $6 billion. Park even put down in writing his displeasure with Choi’s behavior, since she was still standing on her request for Samsung to buy a new horse.