A civic group has filed a complaint against Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong and other 20 executives with the prosecution, asserting that Chairman Lee Kun-hee embezzled several trillions of won in the borrowed-name account of the late Samsung Group founder Lee Byung-chull.
According to the group's assertion, the 9.1 trillion won (As of 2007) in the borrowed-name account of the late founder Lee discovered in 2008 by the special prosecutor on Samsung's slush fund scandal went to Chairman Lee without legal inheritance procedures so that it should be regarded as embezzlement and, related to this, 18.7 trillion won should be collected based on the market price of last year.
The Speculative Capital Supervisory Center filed a complaint on Sept. 4 against Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Kun-hee, Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong and former Samsung Electronics Strategy Planning Director Lee Hak-soo and others with the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office on charges of embezzlement, tax evasion and bribery.
The center argued, "The late Lee Byung-chull's borrowed-name bank account was found to be worth 9.1 trillion won (as of 2007) based on the investigation result of the prosecution's special probe into Samsung. Owing to the founder's death, relevant authorities should have collected 50% of the amount in fine and 90% of interest from the heir apparent Chairman Lee Kun-hee according to the real-name conversion procedure following the inheritance. But there was no such a procedure."
"If Chairman Lee Kun-hee inherited the money on his own, there should be documents of legal evidence such as donation and giving up other people's inheritance. Without such legal evidence, Chairman Lee embezzled the amount like his own property by converting it into his real-name bank account in collusion with financial institutions, including Samsung Securities," it stressed.
The center called for the prosecution to confiscate the entire amount of Lee`s embezzling profits and arrest all those involved.