Samsung Group paid large sums of money to a CJ Group employee who blackmailed it with a sex video featuring its ailing Chairman Lee Kun-hee, state prosecutors said Tuesday.

Despite speculation that the Samsung-CJ rivalry may have been behind the sex tape scandal, the prosecution said it could not find evidence on whether the blackmailers were acting under the direction of CJ Group, headed by Samsung Group chair‘s nephew Lee Jae-hyun.

Revealed by a local news outlet last year, the video shows the Samsung chief giving envelopes to several women and engaging them in conversation suggesting he had paid for sex at his residence and a luxury villa under Samsung SDS executive’s name in southern Seoul.

The prosecution indicted a total of six people for their involvement in shooting the video and blackmailing Samsung Group with the clips. It said it will continue the probe into CJ‘s alleged involvement in making the sex tape.

Prosecutors found that a total of 90 million won ($80,705) had been wired from Samsung chairman’s bank account under a borrowed name to the jailed CJ employee, surnamed Seon, in 2013.

Seon, who allegedly took a lead in the blackmail scheme, was an executive at CJ Group’s affiliate CJ Cheil Jedang and was alleged to be close to Maeng-hee, CJ‘s honorary chairman and Kun-hee’s elder brother.

There have been allegations that CJ, which used to be part of Samsung and separated from it in 1993, orchestrated the creation of the video to sabotage Samsung.

When the videos were filmed between December 2011 and June 2013, Maeng-hee, who died of lung cancer in 2015, was going through a court battle against Kun-hee to claim some of the hidden shares left behind by their father and Samsung Group founder Lee Byung-chull.

The revelation of the sex video not only tainted the moral reputation of the global company, but also put him at risk of facing a punishment for his illegal activities. In South Korea, paying for sex is subject to a jail term for up to 1 year and a 3 million won in fine.

CJ Group has maintained that the recording of the sex video has nothing to do with the company.

Samsung Group said that it had received threats from the CJ employee, but ignored them.

The history of the rivalry between the Samsung empire’s sons goes back decades to when they fought for the leadership to the nation‘s biggest conglomerate.

Lee Byung-Chull, who founded Samsung in 1938, had three sons and five daughters. Defying the country’s long-held practice to pass a family business onto the eldest son, Lee picked the youngest son Kun-hee as his successor.

It is not fully known why Lee chose Kun-hee, instead of the eldest son Maeng-hee, to take over his business. But he later described Maeng-hee as incompetent in his autobiography, saying that the company was plunged into “chaos” under Maeng-hee‘s leadership.

Maeng-hee briefly took the helm of the company following the founder’s resignation in 1966 after Samsung Group‘s fertilizer affiliate was caught smuggling Sakhalin, disguised as construction material, into the country.

Three years later, the founder’s second son Chang-hee told the Blue House through a letter about his father’s creation of slush funds and embezzlement.

Maeng-hee‘s relationship with his father soured as the founder allegedly saw Maeng-hee as being involved in the tip-off.

Kun-hee was named as an heir to Samsung Group in 1976.

The ties between the Lee brothers have allegedly severed since then.

Maeng-hee filed a suit against Kun-hee to claim 4.5 trillion won in shares of Samsung Group’s affiliates, saying that Kun-hee secretly hid the late father’s assets from the siblings.

By Ock Hyun-ju (laeticia.ock@heraldcorp.com)