South Korean police are in search of to arrest Bang Si-Hyuk, the chair of the company behind the Okay-pop band BTS, as they develop an investigation into allegations that he illegally gained greater than $100m (£74m) in an investor fraud scheme.
The Seoul metropolitan police company confirmed it had requested prosecutors to request a court docket warrant for the arrest of Bang, the founder and chair of HYBE.
In an announcement to the Related Press, Bang’s authorized workforce didn’t immediately deal with the accusations however expressed remorse that police have been in search of his arrest “regardless of our full and constant cooperation with the investigation over an prolonged interval”.
“We are going to proceed to cooperate with all authorized procedures and make each effort to obviously clarify our place,” the assertion stated.
Bang has been beneath investigation since November over allegations that he misled buyers in 2019 by telling them HYBE had no plans to go public, inducing them to promote their shares to a personal fairness fund earlier than the corporate proceeded with an preliminary public providing. Police imagine the fund could have paid Bang about 200bn gained ($136m) in a facet deal that promised him 30% of post-IPO inventory sale earnings.
Bang, a music government and producer who based HYBE as Massive Hit Leisure in 2005, is broadly seen as one of the vital highly effective figures in K-pop, overseeing a few of the business’s hottest acts, together with Seventeen, Le Sserafim and Katseye along with BTS.
Bang’s authorized troubles are a serious public relations setback for HYBE, coming as BTS embarks on a global tour after a virtually four-year hiatus whereas its members did obligatory navy service.
BTS carried out in entrance of tens of hundreds of worldwide followers at a free comeback concert in Seoul final month and have additionally held a number of live shows within the South Korean metropolis of Goyang and in Tokyo. The group is to kick off a sequence of US occasions with a live performance in Tampa, Florida, later this month and can go to the UK in July.
