SOUTH Korea, after all, is Samsung country. The homegrown giant conglomerate founded by Lee Jae Yong’s grandfather Lee Byung Chul in the 1930s as a transport company now accounts for 20 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).

South Koreans use Samsung smartphones, watch TV shows on Samsung sets, do their laundry on Samsung washers and their shopping with Samsung credit cards, invest in Samsung insurance products, holiday at Samsung theme parks and hotels… the list goes on.

Atop this octopus-like business empire sits Mr Lee, 48.

The only son of Samsung patriarch Lee Kun Hee joined the company in 1991 and is now vice-chairman of Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest maker of mobile devices and the jewel in Samsung.

But Mr Lee has been Samsung’s de facto boss since May 2014, when his powerful father was hospitalised with a heart attack.

That year, father and son were jointly named by Forbes magazine as the 35th most powerful person in the world and the most powerful Koreans. It seemed only a matter of time before the Harvard-educated Mr Lee took over his father’s mantle.

But, according to a special prosecutor investigating a massive corruption scandal that has consumed President Park Geun Hye, Mr Lee might have been a little too eager to take charge.

Lip balm prince

Samsung is accused of giving 43 billion won (S$52.8 million) to Ms Park’s confidante, Ms Choi Soon Sil, in exchange for the national pension fund’s support for a 2015 merger of two Samsung affiliates — Cheil Industries and Samsung C&T — that gave Mr Lee greater control.

About half of the money went to a business and foundations backed by Ms Choi, and the other half went to bankrolling Ms Choi’s daughter Ms Chung Yoo Ra in her equestrian career.

Mr Lee denied bribery accusations during a parliamentary hearing on Dec 6, 2016, where he was singled out by lawmakers for a grilling out of the eight chaebols, or conglomerates, chiefs summoned.

“Do you know anything?” one legislator chided him as TV cameras rolled. The tycoon, who looked pale and ill-at-ease, repeatedly applied lip balm to his dry lips.

“Do you think you’re doing a good job as the head of a global company like Samsung by saying that you don’t know?” the legislator demanded after Mr Lee said he did not know who in Samsung authorised cash transfers to a foundation in Germany that funded the equestrian training of Ms Chung.

It was all perhaps a little too much for the Samsung prince. He has tried to stay out of the public eye all his adult life, through his father’s bribery and tax evasion convictions in 1996 and 2008, the suicide death of his youngest sister in 2005, and his own divorce in 2009.

A dressing-down in public, on national TV, is unlike anything he has experienced in his gilded life.

Woodenly, he expressed remorse and contrition over the role Samsung may or may not have played in the biggest scandal in South Korea for years, without answering pointed questions like whether Samsung acted in cahoots with Ms Choi.

“I have so many weaknesses and Samsung has things to correct,” he said. “This crisis made me realise that we need to change ourselves.”

His non-answers prompted one exasperated committee member to shout: “Stop giving ridiculous answers and excuses!”

Too big to fail?

Few, apparently, were convinced by his protestations of innocence.

He was subjected to marathon questioning sessions by prosecutors for the following months, before being taken into custody on Feb 17, 2017.

On Feb 28, he was indicted on charges of bribery and embezzlement over his alleged role in the corruption scandal. He was also accused of committing perjury when he insisted during the parliamentary hearing that he never bribed Ms Choi or Ms Park.

He maintained that the “donations” Samsung paid out to Ms Choi were coerced, suggesting that the company was extorted.

“Samsung Group vice-chairman Lee Jae Yong colluded with others including the corporate strategy office chief Choi Gee Sung to bribe the President and Choi Soon Sil with an aim to receive support for his succession by embezzling corporate funds,” Mr Park Young Soo told a televised news conference on March 6 after 70 days of investigation.

The “trial of the century” of South Korea’s modern-day prince began on March 9. If convicted, Mr Lee could face more than 20 years in prison.

Samsung officials said the group would be run by top executives until he is cleared of the charges.

The tycoon has handpicked 13 top lawyers, nearly all of them former judges or prosecutors, to defend him.

Even if he were tried and convicted, it is still possible he could return to the company later or even call the shots from behind bars, just like what fallen chaebol executives have done.

Or perhaps he will be as lucky as his father — Mr Lee Kun Hee was sentenced to a suspended three-year jail term in 2008 for evading taxes, only to be pardoned by then-President Lee Myung Bak just months later in the name of “national interest”.

Whatever happens, for now, Mr Lee has crashed from the stratosphere to earth.

Home is a 6.56 sqm detention cell and bed is a mattress on the floor. The toilet is also in the cell, in the corner behind a partition. On another side of the room is a small study desk.

Mr Lee wears an inmate’s uniform and eats 1,443 won (S$1.77) meals served on plastic trays slid through a small square window in the cell door. He is required to wash his own tray.

He is allowed no contact with other inmates. Any exercise must be done by himself, for only 30 minutes a day.

He gets to watch TV, but he probably will not enjoy it, because his is an LG set.

—The Straits Times

Published in Dawn, March 15th, 2017