Police raided the home of one of South Korea's leading businessmen and were seeking to arrest him yesterday, as they investigated an assault allegedly involving the wealthy chairman of Hanwha Group, his son, a steel pipe and a secluded mountain.

With its allegations of kidnapping and henchmen, the case sounds like a Godfather subplot and has South Korea, no stranger to corporate crimes, atwitter withits sensational claims of mobster-like behaviour.