CJ Group chairman Lee Jay-hyun and his siblings are at the heart of the prosecution’s ongoing investigation into slush fund allegations against the food and entertainment conglomerate.

The nation’s 14th-largest business group is suspected of amassing tens of billions of won in offshore slush funds by evading taxes through transactions with overseas affiliates, adding to a series of similar allegations raised over the past few years.

The prosecution on Tuesday searched CJ offices and the residence of a former CJ official surnamed Lee who had been indicted in 2008 and acquitted of hiring a hit man to kill a debtor as he managed the chairman’s secret funds.

The court had then mentioned that considering the fact that chairman Lee paid over 170 billion won ($152 million) in taxes on his assets under borrowed names, the secret funds the executive handled would have been much larger. Chairman Lee then claimed that they were assets he inherited from his grandfather, the late Samsung Group founder Lee Byung-chull.

In 2009, the CJ chairman was interrogated by the prosecution over allegations that then President Lee Myung-bak’s close friend Chun Shin-il lobbied on behalf of CJ during a tax inquiry into the conglomerate.

CJ Group is also suspected of hiding cash by trading paintings worth hundreds of billions of won with Seomi Gallery.

The search on Tuesday went on for 15 hours at CJ offices including the conglomerate’s headquarters, CJ CheilJedang building and the group’s management research institute.

Chairman Lee, vice chairwoman Lee Mi-kyung and their brother Lee Jae-hwan were named as the suspects in the prosecution’s search warrant.

The Korea Financial Intelligence Unit recently detected suspicious overseas transactions by CJ and transferred the data to the prosecution.

Early this year, Lee Jay-hyun’s father Lee Maeng-hee lost a legal battle against his younger brother, Samsung Electronics chairman Lee Kun-hee, over inheritance from their late father Lee Byung-chull.

Lee Maeng-hee was ruled out from succeeding his father as the head of Samsung Group decades ago after a fertilizer company under his command was found to have smuggled saccharine.

By Kim So-hyun (sophie@heraldcorp.com)