Police Officers Being Investigated for Their Roles in the K-Pop Sex Scandal
I have been reading about this K-Pop sex scandal over the past week and can’t help but wonder why anyone is surprised this was going on?:
Police booked a serving police lieutenant as a suspect and are questioning an elite senior officer as a key witness in the mushrooming sex, drugs, celebrities and police protection scandal surrounding the Burning Sun nightclub.
Joong Ang Ilbo
Following the questioning of an elite police officer on Friday, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said Sunday that it booked a lieutenant at the Gangnam Police Precinct as a suspect for criminal negligence related to illegal activities at the club in Gangnam District, southern Seoul, which was partly owned by K-pop megastar Seungri.
The club was located in the precinct where the lieutenant, only identified by his surname Kim, worked. This is the first time that a current police officer has been identified as a suspect in the scandal.
Kim was accused of criminal negligence in his handling of a complaint against Burning Sun in July last year. A complaint was filed that an underage guest entered the club and drank alcohol, but Kim closed the case, saying there was not enough evidence. Kim also allegedly advised the prosecution that there was no case to pursue.
It appears that the police are speeding up their investigation, as the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office was assigned to investigate a separate but related case concerning several illicit activities discussed in KakaoTalk chat rooms by Seungri, his business partner and other celebrities. The suspected crimes include sexual assault, taking and sharing sex videos without the consent of women in them, prostitution, using drugs, bribing police and tax evasion.
“The scandal seems to be going on for a while, and it is uncomfortable that the police keep being mentioned,” a police official told the JoongAng Ilbo. “We want to quickly and sternly investigate the urgent issues.”
One of the urgent issues concerning the police is the suspicion that an elite member of the police, who once served at the Moon Jae-in Blue House, was involved in the crimes. The senior superintendent of the National Police Agency, only identified by his surname Yun, was suspected of having maintained a close relationship with Seungri, whose real name is Lee Seung-hyun, and his business partner, Yu In-seok.
You can read more at the link.
I guess what surprises me most about all this is that I figured all of those boy band guys were gay……..
As male dominated Korean society is, I wonder how many of the victimized women felt this was the “price of admission” to fame and fortune, however fleeting? Not condoning this pattern of abuse just trying to enter the mind of the victim.
‘an elite police officer’ wtf is an elite police officer in Seoul? One that doesn’t sleep 12 hours a day in his car?
Interesting. Korean Police do not have the rank of Lieutenant unless they happen to be military police.
I know people like to malign/kid about Korea’s cops, but they aren’t the way the jokes make them out to be. Maybe I’m biased, as my brother-in-law is a KNP officer; he’s a detective on a major crimes squad.
Johnhenry, ‘a detective on a major crimes squad’ that just means he gets to sleep at his desk instead of the patrol car.