Entertainment company CEO and idol band together to scam money from a high-school student trainee

The victim agrees to a reconciliation process because they don’t want the culprits to have criminal records.

Recently, A, CEO of an entertainment company was sentenced to 1 years and 6 months in prison for committing fraud. B, head of the secretary department, received 6 months behind bars. C, a member of an idol group, received 1 month of suspended sentence for being an accomplice.

D, the victim, is idol C’s junior and is a high-school student. Three culprits banded together and scammed D a total of 16 times from June to September 2020. The scammed amount was KRW 50.7 million. They deceived D by saying that B was going through a difficult path and that D would have the chance to debut if D lent them an amount of money. The trio also promised to pay back the borrowed amount after 6 months.

Afterwards, the victim is further scammed under A’s direction. B and C used all the money into running the company. However, in court, D agreed to a reconciliation process because D did not want them to receive prison sentences or a criminal record.

Deception and scamming are not new phenomena in the K-pop industry. Bad guys take advantage of young people’s dreams and scam money from them. IU was also a victim once only because she wanted to pursue a career in singing.