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by Glenn Baird - August 28, 2019
Seungri, former member of K-pop band Big Bang was questioned by police today, accused of illegal overseas gambling.
Lee Seung-hyun, who adopted the stage name Seungri has been embroiled in controversy for the greater part of 2019 after he announced his retirement from the entertainment business in March following on from allegations involving sex, drugs and violence.
“The Burning Sun” scandal, as it has been coined in relation to a nightclub in the Gangnam-gu district of Seoul, has not only rocked the world of K-pop but the whole of South Korea, shattering the squeaky clean image that the industry has strived to present for years.
The 28-year-old singer has been accused of “habitual gambling” and the exploitation of the “Foreign Exchange Transactions Act”.
Appearing outside the police station, Seungri spoke briefly saying, “I will diligently cooperate with the police investigation,” before bowing his head and adding, “I apologize”.
K-pop is a South Korean musical phenomenon that became popular in the country in the early 2000s and is now a world-wide industry with fans across the globe. The process of forming K-pop bands has always been an explicitly manufactured one and like any successful manufacturing industry has seen huge benefits for the national economy.
In 2012 K-pop generated more than US$3.4 billion, which at the time was a 27.8% increase on 2011 and was identified by Time magazine as “South Korea’s Greatest Export”.
This new revelation is likely to have implications, not just for Seungri but for the entire K-pop industry.
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland sits to the north-west of mainland Europe. The United Kingdom shares a border with The Republic of Ireland and has coasts on the Atlantic Ocean, Celtic Sea, North Sea, Irish Sea and English Channel. The population of the UK is approaching the 67.6 million mark leading to a fairly densely populated land mass. The gambling sector in the United Kingdom is entirely regulated and licensed by the UKGC – the United Kingdom Gambling Commission. Should players resident In the UK wish to gamble with foreign based operators there is no history of this being treated as a criminal offence, but high levels of protection exist for UK residents playing with UK licensed operators.
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