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| Lee In-won, right, the late Lotte Group vice chairman, stands next to the group's chairman, Shin Dong-bin, in this photo taken at the Lotte Insurance building in Seoul in December 2009. / Yonhap |
By Lee Jin-a, Park Si-soo
The suicide of Lotte Group Vice Chairman Lee In-won on Friday is a grim reminder of bygone corruption scandals in which key figures killed themselves at a critical juncture with the alleged intention of derailing an investigation targeting their "bosses."
Lee was found hanging from a tree on Friday morning, just hours before he was to appear at the Seoul Central Prosecutors' Office to be questioned over allegations the group's founder and chairman have amassed massive slush funds and cashed in on illegalities.
The questioning of Lee was widely seen as a precursor to the summoning of Lotte founder Shin Kyuk-ho and Chairman Shin Dong-bin, two figures at the center of a brewing corruption scandal against Lotte, Korea's fifth-largest business empire.
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| Lee's body is taken into an ambulance at a funeral house in Yangpyeong, Gyeonggi Province, Friday afternoon. / Yonhap |
But Lee's suicide has thwarted the investigation plan, putting the truth about the scandal at risk of being buried forever.
There were several people involved in high-profile scandals who killed themselves in an alleged bid to cover up illegalities of their own or their bosses.
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In December 2014, a police officer surnamed Choi committed suicide amid allegations he leaked a sensitive presidential document to the media. It was alleged that someone "above him" contributed to the leak with the intention of troubling President Park Geun-hye and her three closest aides. Choi's suicide made it impossible for police to dig up the truth of the case.
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| Police officers investigate a sedan in Yangpyeong, Gyeonggi Province, in which Lee's suicide note was found on Friday morning. / Yonhap |
In July 2014, Kim Kwang-jae, the former chairman of the Korea Rail Network Authority, jumped to his death from a bridge on the Han River. He was one of the suspects believed to have received bribes from a supplier to the railroad management company. The police investigation lost its direction following his death.
There are many other figures whose suicide shut down an investigation, leaving the scandals shrouded in mystery. They include: Chung Mong-hun, former chairman of Hyundai Group; Nam Sang-kook, former chief of Daewoo Engineering and Construction; Ahn Sang-yeong, former mayor of Busan, and Park Tae-young, former governor of South Jeolla Province.
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