It wasn’t much more than a couple of months ago that we took a gander at South Korea’s chaebols, the massive firms – such as Samsung and Hyundai – that make up a huge portion of that country’s economy and that have been at the center of one scandal after another, in which top politicians have been accused of taking huge sums from the giant companies in exchange for monopolies, patents, tax breaks, and the like.

This practice, known as rent sharing, became established during the dictatorship of Park Chung-hee (1963-79), and has continued into the country’s democratic era. Presidents Roh Tae Woo (1988-92) and Kim Dae-Jung (1998-2002) were both found guilty of taking chaebol cash; President Roh Moo-hyun (2003-08) responded to allegations of accepting chaebol bribes by jumping to his death in a ravine.

Now South Korea is embroiled in what may be the biggest chaebol scandal yet. In a case that began to make headlines just last month, President Park Geun-hye, the daughter of Park Chung-hee, has been accused of helping a longtime friend, Choi Soon-sil, extort some $69 million from several of the chaebols and letting her receive classified documents. On November 1, Choi was taken into custody by police.

Members of Park’s own party have called for her impeachment; countless people have taken part in demonstrations around the country demanding her resignation or arrest; over half a million gathered in Seoul this past Saturday in the largest protest the country has experienced since the end of authoritarian government in 1987.

The corruption scheme began when a South Korean TV network, JTBC, reported that Choi had improperly received secret government documents via e-mail. Choi, who is said to have received the above-mentioned $69 million through two foundations she controls, is widely viewed as the real power behind the president, who has been in office since 2013; editorial cartoons have depicted her as Park’s puppet master. Prior to her arrest, Choi apologized for having “committed a deadly sin” and asked the public for its forgiveness.

Choi and Park go back a long way: Choi’s father, Choi Tae-min, was a shady character and ecclesiastical huckster (the New York Times has called him a “religious charlatan”) who, in addition to founding a marginal sect called the Church of Eternal Life, managed to wangle his way into the role of close friend and adviser to Park’s father.

Like father, like daughter: the younger Choi not only succeeded her father as head of his daffy church; she also wields a great deal of power in the Blue House, the South Korean equivalent of the White House, even though she holds no official title. For years, according to CNN, Choi “has given Park spiritual guidance.” She’s seen, in fact, as something of a Rasputin, who’s dragged into the presidential orbit a load of astrological hogwash and mystical hocus-pocus.

On Sunday, lead prosecutor Lee Young-ryol said that he would investigate President Park, whom he called an “accomplice” of Choi’s in the scandal and who has so far refused to be interrogated by police. (Park now becomes the first South Korean president to be criminally investigated while still in office.) Lee also announced that he had indicted Choi on charges of extortion and abuse of power and had charged two former Park aides with pressuring firms to donate to Choi’s foundations and handing her classified documents.

Fortunately for Park – who has already dismissed ten senior policy aides, several cabinet members, and the prime minister, Hwang Kyo-ahn – she’s protected by the Constitution from prosecution (except in cases of treason and insurrection) as long as she stays in office. But her approval rating is at a miserable 5%, and things are changing quickly as the investigation passes into the hands of a parliament-appointed special prosecutor. If she gets impeached, she may go straight from the Blue House to the Big House.

Meanwhile, of course, all this has shaken up several of the chaebols, whose leaders have been questioned by the police. We’ll get to that tomorrow.