Samsung CEO faxes tax charges, goes down [not at all] like Al Capone

John Biggs

Biggs is the East Coast Editor of TechCrunch. Biggs has written for the New York Times, InSync, USA Weekend, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Money and a number of other outlets on technology and wristwatches. He is the former editor-in-chief of Gizmodo.com and lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. You can Tweet him here and G+ him here. Email him directly at... → Learn More

Friday, April 18th, 2008


Gollum is led off to fake-jail

They send one of yours to the hospital, you send one of theirs to the morgue. Lee Kun-hee, CEO of Samsung Group, has been indicted for evading taxes on billions of dollars he hid in the name of aides and family members. Dig this quote fom the special prosecutor in Korea:

“Samsung has led the advancing and globalizing of South Korean businesses,” the special prosecutor, Cho Joon-woong, said at a televised news conference. “But it’s also true that it has structural problems.”

That’s Korea for you: excoriate the rich and powerful, yet with just a touch of subservient obsequiousness. Kun-hee cannot be arrested because he handles “1/5th of the country’s exports” and his arrest could plunge the economy into chaos. This comes on the heels of an investigation into Samsung’s bribery complaints last year.

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