**Disclaimer: The article describes alleged incidents reported on by numerous national media sources.**
Most people say, “Life is unfair.” Most people say, “The influential behave as they please because they have power in society”. People might guess that the world of the influential is full of irrationalities. However, people have ignored the true nature of its absurdity. Because of the elaborate concealment, people have not yet seen concrete evidence against it. But unimaginable cases related to money, sex and authority have been exposed in Korea. The socially influential people who have political power, money and believed reputation which they use without proper ‘checks’ by law as if though everything in the society are their rights. People are forced to face the truth, an ugly aspect of society and power based on a possibly illegal ‘alliance’.
[Overview]
2017. 12 Seungri held a luxurious birthday party in the Philippines. It cost over a billion won and he invited many acquaintances, considerable wealth, actors, members of Tenpeuro and so on. This was the first virtual presentation of club Burning Sun.
2018.11.24 Kim Sang Kyo, who visited the club, helped a woman in sexual danger. During that time, he was beaten by club members, so he reported the beating and the alleged sex abuse too, to the police. However, the police accused him of the sex abuse.
2018. 12.14 Kim appealed to the people on the Internet, and revealed a video about an alleged assault that occurred in a police station
2018.12.21 Several women accused Kim of multiple indecent assaults. It was later possibly revealed that they were instructed by the club to accuse him.
2019. 01.28 Kim unveiled a video from Burning Sun’s CCTV
2019. 01.29 People signed a petition to investigate the Burning Sun and the police on suspicion of corruption.
2019.01.30 Seoul Regional Investigation Unit started investigating. A drug test found components of drugs in Lee-Mun Ho and one Burning Sun CEO Kim. It narrowed down the scope of investigation. In this process, it was disclosed that there were corrupt in various police agencies.
2019. 02.26 Seungri’s Kakao talk contents were opened to the public. It led another club, Arena, to be investigated and Seungri was booked on charging of providing prostitution. This chatroom also reveals singer Jeong Joon Young’s candid videos, Choi Jong-Hoon’s drunk driving situation and other celebrities’ sexual crimes up to this point. Including Eddie Kim, it accuses to 5 people of misconduct.
The Chief of the National Police Agency, Mr. Yun, has been alleged of privately meeting some celebrities. He met Seungri four times and Yinseok Yoo, the CEO of Yuri Holdings, 6 times. According to the police, the cost of dinners and to play golf was paid by Yinseok Yoo or the chief, Yun. This shows that Yun may receive payback of some kind, like a ‘quid pro quo’. In addition to this, the police revealed that Yun checked the progress of the investigation regarding the Food Sanitation Act. He received Big Bang concert tickets in return for his help. The police are trying to disclose how many times Yun paid reception and to find out evidence of strings attached to various other situations.
The second most problematic aspect of this case is the behavior of the police. Some police tried to get rid of the evidence of police corruption. First, they ignored the report about alleged sexual assault at Burning Sun club. They didn’t answer the calls from Burning Sun eye-witnesses. The police even insisted that the eyewitnesses called the wrong phone number, to 119. They wanted to overlook an immoral business. Second, they hid illegal acts, including club access to a minor. It was reported but they instructed the minor to give a false report. Moreover, they did not properly investigate by giving the case to the wrong department, one which was in charge of the economy. Looking deeper, people can assume that there are police ‘brokers’. Mr. Kang, a former detective, is a representative. He complied with some requests regarding the Monkey Museum, a hip-hop lounge founded by Yuri Holdings. Kang strongly insists that everything illegal that occurred at the clubs was finished before he intervened in the case. But most circumstantial evidence points toward him, so the police is investigating what he did and what he earned as reward.
Most people think that the Burning Sun is the trigger, but the real starting point was the Monkey Museum. It is the parent club of Burning Sun and its existence itself is possibly illegal. Monkey Museum pretends to be a normal restaurant, not a bar, to avoid the burden of the bar tax. Even when they got a business suspension, it’s reported they resumed sales again the very next day. Police are the watchdogs that supervise whether people violate the law or not. Their surveillance is to work for the ordinary citizen, not for the corrupted people who give them money. The primary reason why they acted as their pleases is that maybe they were not afraid of anything in Korea. What was worse, they distorted the process of investigation. When it was reported that the police were relevant to this scandal, they investigated the cell phone repair shop first, rather than the suspects. The special relationship between the police and celebrities can’t be denied under these circumstances. From now on, people should focus on how deep that affinity, that relationship is. We should be concerned where the collected money alleged from Burning Sun for special get-togethers and the like are going to: the police?
For economic profit, Seungri commited a lot of illegal behavior. He set up the fake paper company and got investments from the rich around the world. He pretended he was not a major member of the Burning Sun, but he helped plan how to build it. Even though he invested a litte of his money, everything was set up for him. Let’s look at the Burning Sun’s investor’s stakes are divided. The hotel, where the Burning Sun rents, owns 42% of the shares in Burning Sun and a hotel’s board member Lee also own 8%. Lee Munho also has 10%, Seungri’s buisness, Yuri Holdings, has 20% and an abroad member owns another 20% of the Burning Sun’s shares. The abroad member refers to Rinsamo, whose husband is famous in Thailand. She is super rich and has suspected connection with the Triad. Thanks to her, Seungri didn’t invest all his money. She invested more than a billion won and gave it to him for free.
Burning Sun is a place for supplying sexual entertainment, which is illegal, especially for investors. It only accepts cash, and its services are very expensive. Beyond these, Burning Sun avoids paying tax, uses a paper company for money laundering, and deals drug allegedly. All kinds of deleterious crimes are gathered here. It is too horrible to think of how many illegal activities and people are involved through Burning Sun.
In my opinion, these ridiculous connections and affinity with the police emerged because the political world needs a place to be entertained, the public officials want the black money and the celebrities want to avoid the wide net of the law to earn more money. If they didn’t commit some shady conduct, they wouldn’t have to be afraid of the investigation. But, the investigation process itself is suspicious as if they hid something tremendous. Their crimes must not be allowed in our society. The public already has lost their faith in their society because of the Sun-Hack-Jang case. The only way to recover the public’s faith is for a transparent investigation to handle it accurately and hopefully and reveal every single fact. The public should stay tuned to the investigative power whether they faithfully perform their duty to discover all rotten authorities who are restricted by nothing. The public should not clamor about the fact that the celebrities do such illegal acts. People need to see the essence of this case, the irrational behavior of the influential. The public should not idolize media celebrities any more. Remember they are just regular people like you and me, not special ones. Just keep focusing on going forward towards a mature society where justice is alive.
Han Suji suzyhan96@gmail.com
<저작권자 © 홍익대영자신문사, 무단 전재 및 재배포 금지>
