Samsung Electronics' ailing chairman, Lee Kun-hee, was named by South Korean police on Thursday as a suspect in an 8.2 billion won ($7.5 million) tax evasion case that involved the use of bank accounts held by employees.
The development is the latest in a series of scandals that have dogged the family behind Samsung, the country's biggest business empire.
The chairman's son Jay Y. Lee, heir to the Samsung Group, was released from detention earlier this week after an appeals court halved his sentence for bribery and corruption to two and a half years and suspended it for four years.