[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics Executive President Park Sang-jin and some of his aides led a campaign to support a paper company allegedly run by Choi Soon-sil, who is at the center of the recent presidential scandal rocking South Korea, according to news reports.



The Samsung executive -- who concurrently serves as the chairman of the Korea Equestrian Federation -- and Hwang Seong-su -- a senior vice president at Samsung -- allegedly met with the Choi and her associates, who requested the tech giant to chip in up to 8 billion won (US$7 million) to help nurture athletes in relatively less popular sports in Korea, such as equestrian events.











Up until September this year, Samsung has reportedly handed over 3.5 billion won to Core Sports, a Germany-based paper company owned by Choi and her daughter Chung Yu-ra, who was previously on the national equestrian team. Some of the funds given by Samsung were reportedly used to purchase horses for Chung.



“We will cooperate with the prosecution,” said one Samsung spokesman, declining to comment any further.



The two Samsung executives involved flew to Germany on Oct. 28, two days before Choi returned to Korea from there. Samsung officials said they could not comment on when they would return.



A total of four conglomerates have so far been reported to have provided funds to Choi in hopes of receiving business and political favors from the government.



By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)