Police chase BTS agency chair Bang Si Hyuk in 400 Billion KRW stock fraud probe, search warrant issued against HYBE

Bang Si Hyuk, the founder and chairman of HYBE (BTS designate), is at the center of an intensifying police investigation into alleged spurious transactions, and now, the police have taken a vital subsequent step.

Police Authorities have officially utilized for a search and seizure warrant in opposition to HYBE and connected parties.

Per Newsen, the Seoul Metropolitan Police’s Financial Crime Investigation Unit submitted the ask to the Securities Crime Joint Investigation Unit of the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office. Here’s their 2d try after an earlier ask became as soon as rejected in early Might well additionally merely.

What Is Bang Si Hyuk’s Controversy?

Bang Si Huk and his stop mates misled traders in 2019 about HYBE’s plans to switch public. On the time, the company, then identified as BigHit Leisure, reportedly told sure traders there were no instantaneous IPO (Initial Public Offering) plans, citing injurious market prerequisites. However, around that similar time, HYBE had already utilized for a selected audit, a formal and vital first step within the strategy of making ready for an IPO. The case entails a 400 billion KRW (approx. USD 290 million) deal, allegedly tied to misleading traders and hidden income-sharing.

Why is The Police Investigating?

Police now think this discrepancy would possibly well presumably merely no longer were accidental. HYBE became as soon as quietly laying the groundwork for its blockbuster stock market debut in 2020. Some early traders, taking management’s phrases at face value, offered their shares, personal equity firms admire Easton PE and Newmain Fairness stepped in and bought stakes later that year.

The Financial Supervisory Carrier is additionally conducting its overview, raising the stakes further. If police can reveal that HYBE deliberately misled traders all thru this duration, the case would possibly well presumably evolve correct into a necessary capital markets scandal.

For now, prosecutors are reviewing the warrant ask. If approved, it would possibly well perchance actually presumably give investigators access to vital interior offers from HYBE.

However the seek recordsdata from stays: Will this impression BTS?

The solution is each and every no and yes.

No, on tale of BTS as a neighborhood is no longer concerned in regards to the investigation. They originate no longer have any connection to the alleged spurious transactions, and their title hasn’t method up in any fragment of the scandal. The members are entirely fracture away the industrial dealings under scrutiny.

Sure, within the sense that BTS is carefully tied to HYBE and its subsidiary BigHit Music. Public perception of the company would possibly well presumably merely circuitously solid a shadow, merely as a consequence of that affiliation. However, it’s no longer inclined to have any lasting impression on the neighborhood itself. One can rob it mostly as no raise out will fall upon BTS.