SEOUL, South Korea — Jay Y. Lee, heir to one of the world’s biggest corporate empires, followed in the footsteps of his prominent father. He took charge of key businesses. He hobnobbed with his country’s president. He brought in new ideas.

Then, like his father, he was charged with breaking the law.

Mr. Lee, the de facto leader of South Korea’s Samsung Group, was indicted on a charge of bribery this past week, accused of taking part in a political scandal that has rocked his home country. The image of a pillar of industry, in handcuffs, escorted by the police from jail to meet with prosecutors sent a message that shocked even a jaded public: South Korea’s postwar economic order is under threat.

Samsung has experienced this before. Since the 1960s, when the company was caught smuggling artificial sweetener, its leaders have been in and out of trouble with minor consequences. Twice, Mr. Lee’s father was saved from prison by a South Korean president worried that anything that hurt Samsung could also hurt an economic machine that lifted millions of people from the ashes of war.

The thought of Mr. Lee in jail has raised a tantalizing prospect for many South Koreans: This time could be different.