{"id":266183,"date":"2016-11-08T09:43:27","date_gmt":"2016-11-08T09:43:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=266183"},"modified":"2016-11-08T09:43:27","modified_gmt":"2016-11-08T09:43:27","slug":"samsung-raided-in-political-corruption-probe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=266183","title":{"rendered":"Samsung raided in political corruption probe"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Korean prosecutors have raided the offices of Samsung Electronics as part of a probe into the political scandal around President Park Geun-hye.<\/p>\n

The prosecutors are investigating allegations that Samsung gave money to the daughter of Choi Soon-sil, a close friend of the president.<\/p>\n

Ms Choi is accused of using their friendship to interfere in politics and solicit business donations.<\/p>\n

Samsung confirmed the raids to the BBC saying they had “no further comment”.<\/p>\n

President Park has apologised for her ties to Ms Choi but faces mounting calls to resign.<\/p>\n

In this latest twist of the scandal that’s been rocking South Korea for weeks, prosecutors are investigating allegations that Samsung might have provided \u20ac2.8m euros ($3.1m, \u00a32.5m) to a company co-owned by Ms Choi and her daughter, to bankroll the daughter’s equestrian training in Germany.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors are also reported to have raided the offices of the Korea Equestrian Federation and the Korea Horse Affairs Association.<\/p>\n

Ms Choi was arrested on 3 November and charged with fraud and abuse of power.<\/p>\n

\"ChoiMs Choi, a long-time friend of Ms Park’s, is the daughter of Choi Tae-min, a shadowy quasi-religious leader<\/span><\/figure>\n

Over the past days, tens of thousands of South Koreans have protested in the capital, Seoul, to demand the resignation of President Park over the corruption row.<\/p>\n

Ms Choi, a long-time friend of Ms Park’s, is the daughter of Choi Tae-min, a shadowy quasi-religious leader who was closely linked to Ms Park’s father, then-president Park Chung-hee.<\/p>\n

She is alleged to have pushed businesses to donate millions of dollars to foundations she controlled, helped choose presidential aides, and even picked the president’s clothes.<\/p>\n

Ms Park has since apologised on TV for allowing her long-standing friend inappropriate access to government policy-making. The president admitted she had let Ms Choi edit her speeches.<\/p>\n

President Park has already replaced her prime minster, reshuffled her cabinet and dismissed several aides, but there are growing calls for her resignation or impeachment.<\/p>\n

\"SouthMs Park said she had “put too much faith” in her friendship with Ms Choi<\/span><\/figure>\n

The scandal has left Ms Park with an approval rating of just 5%.<\/p>\n

Choo Mi-ae, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, said she did not believe the apology was genuine and called on her to accept a new prime minister recommended by parliament.<\/p>\n

Ms Park became her country’s first female president when she was elected in a close-run contest in December 2012.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Korean prosecutors have raided the offices of Samsung Electronics as part of a probe into the political scandal around President Park Geun-hye. The prosecutors are investigating allegations that Samsung gave money to the daughter of Choi Soon-sil, a close friend of the president. Ms Choi is accused of using their friendship to interfere in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":266186,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-266183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=266183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/266186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=266183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=266183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=266183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}