A famous South Korean advertisement director is being thrust into the center of a political scandal involving figures from President Park Geun-hye’s inner circle.

Cha Eun-taek, who directed popular TV commercials and music videos featuring K-pop groups such as Big Bang, is accused of receiving preferential treatment to win government contracts. He is also suspected to be a key figure behind the creation of two foundations -- Mir and K-Sports -- and their “phenomenally successful” fundraising among top conglomerates.
According to opposition lawmakers and local media, which made a series of allegations about him this week, the 46-year-old ad director is “the most powerful man” in Korea’s cultural scene, peddling influence behind the scenes with his connections to powerful people.

“No previous administrations have offered such favors to private organizations run by the president’s inner circle,” Rep. Park Jie-won, an interim leader of the third-biggest centrist People’s Party. “Who on earth are Cha Eun-taek and Choi Soon-sil?”

Choi, another figure at the center of the scandal and said to be close to Cha, is known as a friend of President Park. 

While Choi, ex-wife of Park’s former aide Jeong Yun-hoe, has held no position in officialdom, Cha served in 2014 as a member of the Presidential Committee on Cultural Enrichment and then until April this year as head of a task force of government and private sector officials in charge of promoting President Park’s signature economic initiative known as the “Creative Economy.”

Cha’s uncle Kim Sang-ryul served as Park’s senior secretary for education and culture in 2014, while his professor at Hongik University’s graduate school and long-time mentor Kim Jong-deok is now the culture minister. 

Allegations raised against him so far have him deeply involved in the suspicious formation and management of Mir and K-Sports foundations, both allegedly run by Choi.

Cha is also accused of using his connections to win ad contracts from government agencies as well as private companies like South Korea’s largest telecommunication firm KT, which was a state-run company before being privatized in 2002.

In one of such claims, People’s Party Rep. Chae Yi-bae said that the regulator Financial Service Commission granted a contract to Cha’s advertisement firm Africa Pictures for its promotional campaign.

Some reports suggested that Cha was granted “unusual access” to Park and allowed to have one-on-one talks with her -- privileges the director had allegedly bragged about. Cha denied the allegation in an interview with a local daily last week. 

By Yeo Jun-suk (jasonyeo@heraldcorp.com)