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President Park Geun-hye is depicted wearing handcuffs during a press conference by the Labor Party outside the offices of Park Young-soo’s special prosecutors team in the Daechi neighborhood of Seoul’s Gangnam District

The investigation team led by Special Prosecutors Park Young-soo, who is investigating the scandal involving President Park Geun-hye and Choi Sun-sil, finished moving into its office in the Daechi neighborhood of Seoul’s Gangnam District and began preparing for the investigation on Dec. 13. Ahead of the country’s first-ever criminal investigation of a sitting president, the next question is who will be in the special prosecutor’s crosshairs.

Since Park Young-soo intends to complete the investigation by the end of Feb. 2017 (when the first phase of the investigation, lasting 70 days, will come to an end), he is expected to move forward with investigating allegations that Park committed bribery.

“After completing our preparations through an adequate review of the records, we will quickly gear up for the investigation. We expect to have nearly completed our documentary review by the end of this week,” said Lee Gyu-cheol, an assistant special prosecutor and spokesperson for Park Young-soo’s team.

The special prosecutor’s team is reportedly thinking about initially targeting the Blue House, Samsung Group and Lotte Group with the hope of proving the bribery charges against Park Geun-hye. Since the Blue House was the site of the influence-peddling committed by Park Geun-hye, Choi Sun-sil, former Senior Secretary for Policy Coordination Ahn Jong-beom and former personal presidential secretary Jung Ho-seong, the Blue House was raided three times by prosecutors’ special investigation team between Dec. 10 and 11. But the prosecutors failed to get their hands on enough documents, since they relied on Blue House officials to submit those documents voluntarily.

An investigation also needs to be carried out on the presidential residence at the Blue House. But if the Blue House stubbornly refuses to permit a search on the pretext of “protecting secrets,” the same situation could be repeated. “If the Blue House stands its ground about the search, there’s no way to get around it. This is a major dilemma for the special prosecutor,” said a prosecutor who has experience working under a special prosecutor.

Another possibility that is being mulled over is investigating the Samsung and Lotte groups. The special prosecutor was given documents from the prosecutors’ investigation of these chaebol and was told about allegations of third-party bribery. Samsung gave around 10 billion won (US$8.58 million) directly to Choi Sun-sil and her family and donated 20.4 billion won to the Mir and K-Sports Foundations - more than any other company. While the prosecutors investigated the Samsung Group vigorously, carrying out three raids, they failed to close the case and handed over their evidence to the special prosecutor. Since Lotte also gave 7 billion won in extra funding to the K-Sports Foundation (which Choi effectively controlled), that chaebol is likely to provide key evidence to support charges of bribery against Park Geun-hye.

The special prosecutor’s team plans to confirm as many of the current allegations as possible and to bring their case before the court by the end of the first period of the investigation on Feb. 28. While the special prosecutor act includes the option of adding a second period of 30 days to the investigation, there is no guarantee that this extension will be granted, since it requires the approval of the president (or in this case, acting president Hwang Kyo-ahn). The special prosecutor also appears to have the strategic goal of completing the investigation by the beginning of Mar. 2017, when the Constitutional Court is likely to rule on Park’s impeachment.

By Choi Hyun-june, staff reporter

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