SEOUL, April 17 (Xinhua) -- South Korean Samsung Group's President Lee Kun-hee was charged with tax evasion and breach of trust on Thursday after a 99-day investigation by special prosecutors.

    "The charges levied today involve an astronomical amount of money and are very serious crimes that deserve heavy punishment in court," special prosecutor Cho Joon-woong said at a nationally televised press conference.

    Kim Yong-chul, a former laywer of Samsung, claimed in January that Samsung created huge slush funds to routinely bribe public officials, and illegally transferred control of the group from Lee Kun-hee to his son Lee Jae-yong.

    Cho said Lee traded Samsung shares with secret money and secured huge profits, while evading about 112.8 billion won (114 million U.S. dollars) worth of taxes.

    The prosecutor also found a total of 4.5 trillion won (4.5 billion U.S. dollars) stashed in borrowed-name accounts were Lee's assets. Lee's reported fortune was 2 trillion won (2 billion U.S. dollars) this year.

    Lee, who runs South Korea's biggest company, will go on trial without physical detention, as the prosecutor called the irregularities a "time-honored practice" by local conglomerates.

    Nine executives, including Samsung's number two official, Vice Chairman Lee Hak-soo, were also indicted without physical detention for collaborating in the practices.

    The prosecutor said that Lee played a role in the illegal transfer of group control. The father-to-son transfer occurred in the mid-1990s. Lee Kun-hee's son acquired convertible bonds of the theme park Everland, Samsung's de-facto holding company, and took control of the group through buying the CBs "at a remarkably low price."

    Cho confirmed that Samsung created slush funds, but said no evidence was found of lobbying which allegedly involved such prominent figures as Prosecutor-General Lim Chai-jin and Kim Sung-ho, chief of the National Intelligence Service.

    The special prosecutor will report the conclusion of the investigations to President Lee Myung-bak in 10 days. A court ruling is expected within three months.

    Lee Kun-hee, 66, ranked 605th in Forbes Magazine's 2008 "World's Billionaires" list, with an estimated fortune of 2 billion U.S. dollars.