Samsung raided for artwork - Yonhap

SEOUL, Jan 22 (Reuters) - Agents for South Korean special prosecutors combed the warehouses at Samsung Group's seeing eye dog training camp on Tuesday in search of millions of dollars' worth of artwork that they suspect was bought with illegal funds, Yonhap news agency reported.

Roy Lichtenstein's 1964 work "Happy Tears" and Frank Stella's "Bethlehem's Hospital" are some of the artworks that a former legal executive of the country's biggest conglomerate said were in its chairman Lee Kun-hee's personal possession.

"We need to make sure whether there is art work that was bought with slush fund money," a prosecutor with the team, Yoon Jung-seok, was quoted as saying by Yonhap.

Officials conducting the probe could not be reached for comment.

A spokesman for Samsung said none of the paintings including the Lichtenstein and Stella were in Lee's possession.

Investigators were searching the warehouses on the grounds of Samsung Everland, a theme park south of Seoul, where media quoted art industry sources as saying Samsung kept art work worth millions of dollars in climate controlled and secured storage.

The search comes after prosecutors last week raided Lee's residence and offices and the conglomerate headquarters since launching the probe on suspicions that it bribed public officials to squash investigations into its management practices.

South Korea's parliament approved the probe in November in response to allegations by Kim Yong-cheol, a former top Samsung legal executive, who said the group had used its subsidiaries to create a slush fund.

Samsung has called the accusations groundless, and has issued detailed rebuttals of Kim's claims.

Best known for Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), the world's top maker of liquid crystal display (LCD) screens and memory chips, Samsung Group wields enormous power in South Korea.

Several of its affiliates train seeing eye dogs on the sprawling hillside camp south of Seoul and give them away for free as part of its non-profit work. (Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)