SHE was young and appeared to have it all. Lee Yoon Hyung, an heiress to the family that controls South Korea’s Samsung Group, certainly had all the money she could ever need to indulge her passion for fast cars and fine art.

With a personal fortune estimated at £105 million and degrees from prestigious universities in New York and Seoul, there seemed to be no limit to what she could achieve. Her self-confidence and charm were in evidence in a personal website, called Pretty Yoon Hyung.

But yesterday the grim reality of life as the daughter in a family that ran the country’s top conglomerate was revealed when it emerged that Ms Lee had committed suicide.

At the age of just 26 she hanged herself with an electrical cord at her New York apartment.

True to form, it was Samsung the company, and not her family, that issued a statement confirming the circumstances of her sad and lonely death.

Last week newspapers in Seoul ran front-page articles reporting that she had died in a traffic accident, citing police and medical examiners’ reports which were backed up by Samsung.

Yet when investigative journalists challenged Samsung’s version of events the company was found to have been less than honest, as has so often been the case.

Yesterday a Samsung spokesman said that the company did not correct initial reports out of respect for the family.

Ms Lee lived in Manhattan’s bohemian East Village, a limousine at her beck and call. But a doorman at her building on Astor Place told reporters that she sometimes seemed to stay in her apartment for as long as a week at a time without leaving.

Friends said she had become lonely and depressed since moving to New York, after a plan to marry a Korean boyfriend was opposed by her parents.

Now, inevitably, Ms Lee’s mysterious death has cast further shadows over South Korea’s richest, most powerful and most secretive company at a time when it can ill afford more negative publicity.

With interests that range from computer chips to shipping, Samsung epitomises South Korea’s chaebol, the family-run conglomerates that were credited with building the Korean economic miracle from the 1960s to the 1980s.

But the chaebols’ collusive business practices, enormous debts and opaque management style were widely criticised for bringing the country to its knees during the Asian economic crisis of 1997.

After the economic crash, Samsung restructured, disposing of loss-making interests. Samsung Electronics, the group’s flagship enterprise which makes semiconductors and mobile phones, has overtaken Sony, its Japanese rival, in market capitalisation and brand value.

But Samsung has a darker side. Its chairman, and Ms Lee’s father, is the reclusive Lee Kun-hee, son of the founder, who is currently incommunicado in the United States, where he is reportedly undergoing treatment for cancer.

He has ignored two separate summonses to appear before the National Assembly after Samsung was found this year to have paid political bribes during the 1997 presidential election.

The scandal resulted in the recall of Hong Seok-hyun, Seoul’s ambassador to Washington. Mr Hong, who was implicated, is related to the Samsung family by marriage.

There are also questions hanging over a murky share deal that handed Lee Jae-yong, Ms Lee’s older brother and Samsung heir apparent, a majority stake in Everland, a Disneyesque theme park that is Samsung’s de facto holding company.

Two Samsung executives received suspended sentences for arranging the deal, though the company is appealing against the decision.

This year Samsung also agreed to pay a $300 million fine to the US Department of Justice over price fixing of memory chips.

And the group has challenged Seoul’s Fair Trade Commission in the Constitutional Court after it ruled that Samsung had to divest some shares in financial affiliates.

The issue lies at the heart of Korea Inc’s notorious financial opacity.

Given the group’s power and influence, and its clear proclivity for wielding it, some Korean media have dubbed their country “The Republic of Samsung.”

FATAL ATTRACTION

Edoardo Agnelli, only son of Gianni Agnelli and heir to the Fiat business empire, committed suicide by jumping from a Turin bridge.

Times Recommends

• Rio Tinto four held as China prepares case
• Diplomats must keep heads down and trousers up
• When in Rome should one make like Berlusconi?