#311: Top K-Pop Stars Opened a Night Club to Drug & Sell Women to Overseas Investors

29:26They would text things like, the VIP in the room is looking for good water tonight. Okay, I'm looking for good water. Hurry, he's pestering me for water. He's very thirsty. He said it doesn't even need to be good water anymore. Just someone get him some water. His fellow coworker responds, I'll get him a side dish then. A little confusing. In another chat, an employee texts the other employees, someone is approaching the water I secured for a VIP. Bouncer, hurry up and go protect my water. He gets a response from the bouncer. On it. The bouncer pushes through the crowd towards the bar, scanning the area.

29:59He spots the water that the employee is talking about. A man is with the water. So he approaches this man, tells him to get lost, and he's standing there awkwardly with the water. But it's not what you imagine. It's not a cup of water. It's not a bottle of water. It's a woman. She's very pretty. She would make the VIPs very happy. Employees at the Burning Sun had their own vocabulary when they were working. When they say water, they were never talking about real water. They were talking about women. Female club goers. That's what they call them. Not humans, not people, not women. Water. So in Korean, like 물.

30:39물. Yeah. It's like a phrase that you would use. If you go outside and you see a ton of pretty people that day, you might say something along the lines of, wow, why is the water so fresh today? That's a way of saying, wow, everyone is so attractive today. Because the slang is, the water is fresh, means the fish in the water is fresh, and tasty. Water can refer to all genders when it's used in this phrase. Like when people say the water is fresh, it's not just referring to women. It could mean, oh, the guys are attractive, like everybody's attractive. Okay.

31:19at the burning sun water refers to women good water refers to very pretty women and averagely okay women are just side dishes they are not the main course the goal for the employees at the burning sun is to survey the women coming into the club pick the prettiest ones that would please the VIPs, get them drunk and drug these customers of their own. Drug them before the VIPs get there so they can deliver them to the VIP. The goal would be she is beautiful. She is beyond the point of consent. The VIP is happy because now the VIP doesn't have to waste his time getting her drunk so that he can essay her.

31:57He can just go ahead and do whatever he wants to illegally. VIP is happy. The employees get a big tip. That is the ultimate goal of the employees at Burning Sun and nothing makes them happier than watching the literal essay of a young woman. They would text videos into their group chat of VIPs are wording unconscious woman. They would text things like, look at the VIP room right now, they're doing it. They would text back, wow, it's true. From Burning Sun to Hong Kong. To go to Hong Kong means reaching the height during intimate activities. So if a weird Korean guy asks if you want to go to Hong Kong tonight, he's not asking you to catch a flight with him for a spontaneous trip.

32:37He's asking you for something sexual. And employees of the Burning Sun knew VIPs were more likely to tip them and come back if they were going to Hong Kong. But very few girls ever got drunk at a club to the point of not being aware of their surroundings or passing out. Or at least you don't do that without having friends that you can trust to not let you out of their sight. I feel like most girls know how dangerous that is. So it's up to the employees to get girls into that state quickly and discreetly. Their solution was date rape drugs. They, employees, sometimes even bartenders, would date rape drug their own female customers, which, you know, a few things about this are so terrifying.

33:16How easy it is to spike someone's drink, terrifying. But also I imagine if I went to a club, I might be cautious of strange men around me, but I don't think I would ever be really cautious that the bartender would spike my drink or that the employees would. Especially Burning Sun, one of the most famous club. High-end. Most high-end club. Yeah. What? The employees would date rape drug their own female customers to serve them on a silver platter for higher-paying male VIP customers who came to essay the female customers. They drugged women, essayed them, took pictures and videos of the assaults, created a product catalog of the victims to see if other VIPs wanted to pay to SA these victims as well.

34:02That was the real business model of Burning Sun. They were, in theory, running a complicated sex trafficking ring, and they got away with it for a very long time. Not because they're flying under the radar and never getting called out on it. It's because they were being so blatant about it. There is a saying, I believe in German, and it's translated into English as the devil was covering it with its own tail. And it's in reference to something being so out in the open. It's basically right under your nose. But you miss it because the devil has just barely hit it out of plain view. Like hiding in plain sight.

34:39The Burning Sun's reputation was the tail. And if anyone heard any strange, questionable stories coming out of The Burning Sun, first, they would question if the storytellers were even sober enough to remember the events correctly. And if the answer was yes, they would all just kind of shrug and say something along the lines of, eh, that's just what happens at the Burning Sun. The club was owned by a well-known Korean celebrity and a bunch of investors. And the sentiment for a lot of Koreans at the time was, what else do you expect to happen at a place like the Burning Sun? It doesn't have a wholesome reputation.

35:13The club was co-founded by Lee Seung-li, who is known as the Great Gatsby of South Korea. And not because he's a fan of literature and that's his favorite book, but because he throws insane lavish parties. I'm talking a whole line of bottle girls coming out in line, holding$1 ,000 bottles of champagne in each hand with insane sparklers shooting out of them. And it's not just one or two bottle girls. It's like a whole parade of them. Stacked champagne glasses ready to be filled. Pretty woman everywhere. Uniformed girls in white and gold sparkly dresses popping$10 ,000 bottles,$50 ,000 bottles. It was crazy.

35:53This is the same guy, Seung Lee, where for his own birthday, he had booked out a full luxury resort in the Philippines so that nobody else could stay there. Flew 150 of his closest celebrity, Nepo baby, politician, children, friends from all over East Asia, not just South Korea, but China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, everywhere to the resort. Flew them out in the Philippines to party for four days and three nights straight. these are not people that sit in economy he's booking first class tickets for all of them that's crazy he spent twenty thousand dollars twenty thousand dollars on just fireworks for his birthday countdown which is like really a crazy thing to do and the whole weekend ended up being around four hundred and forty four thousand dollars that's crazy because his image is like the opposite of this in the band big bang this is a guy willing to drop hundreds of thousands if not like half a million dollars on his birthday party.

36:50And he started as this humble, insecure boy. We're going to get into all of it. You know, this became the appeal of Burning Sun. The general population of Korea had started to hear about Seung Lee's parties, started to hear about the new great Gatsby of South Korea, and they wanted to go to one of Gatsby's insane parties. But back before Seung Lee opened Burning Sun, there's no way. How do you get on a celebrity's guest list? But now with Burning Sun, the club, they can experience it firsthand. So yeah, chaos is expected. People would say, did you hear about that underage girl? The underage girl that stole her mom's credit card and spent it all at Burning Sun.

37:31Apparently, the mom found out, rushed to Burning Sun. The bouncers called the cops on the mom. Mom gets handcuffed, dragged away. But the crazy thing is, there are speculations that it wasn't just a girl with a fake ID who wanted to party. that maybe Burning Sun was trying to target underage girls to come to the club. Wow. I don't know how true that is. That's just what happens at the Burning Sun. These are the reactions people would give. There was another report of a couple that went to the Burning Sun, and the girlfriend had, you know, she felt comfortable. She was going to this wild, crazy club, but she was going with her boyfriend.

38:07So if anybody approached her, she would just say, Oh, I have a boyfriend, and he's right there. Or if she was scared, she could just ask the boyfriend, Hey, can you just take me home? I don't really feel safe. That night at the Burning Sun, her own boyfriend drugged her with date rape drugs at the club that assaulted her at a hotel and filmed it without her consent. That's true or? True. She filed a police report against him. Wow. The boyfriend claimed, my girlfriend consented to it all. We're dating. Of course she consented. She wanted it. She said when you're on GHB, the date rape drug, it feels like you're in a trance.

38:43You just do whatever you're told to do and you kind of hear things, but then you have no recollection of anything once you truly wake up and snap out of it. You feel like a zombie that you can take orders, but you don't remember any of that. But it's just what happens at the burning sun, right? How can they control what kind of boyfriends come in with what kind of intentions? Then another story came out. A witness, Miss K, stated that she was with this guy that she had met at Burning Sun. And he's like, hey, do you want to come up to my hotel room upstairs? because the burning sun is attached to a hotel.

39:14She accepted. She said that she was just going to go up there to have a drink with him. But as soon as he opens the door to the hotel room, she sees something very, very alarming. A woman is laying unconscious on the couch and a man is shoving his face in her chest and climbing on top of her. He gets off immediately like he had just been caught doing something. He's friends with the guy that she walked in with. So I guess they're sharing this room or something. And he just starts laughing and he's like, oh yeah like you know this is my girlfriend and she's super drunk right now but that's not what it felt like the girl didn't just look super drunk and something about the whole vibe it didn't seem like his girlfriend either she called the police but they responded super nonchalantly about it saying well technically no crime really happened did it so once again some people including the police were just saying it's just what happens at the burning sun another story was of a girl named Sarah.

40:08Well, let's call her Sarah. Sarah said that she didn't really know too much about the burning sun other than the fact that her friends would go to the club and come back with these crazy stories of how they felt so extroverted and crazy and it was a blast and how fun it was. And she's thinking, wow, this is kind of this is insane. My friends are normally insane introverts that hate leaving the house. And this club is bringing them out of their shells. Naturally, she's curious. She gets connected to a friend of a friend named Anna, who said that she had been a big party goer and they formed this friendship.

40:40Anna offers to take Sarah to the burning sun since she had been there before and Sarah has no clue that Anna didn't just go to the burning sun a few times. Anna worked at the burning sun as a drug runner. Once they get to the club Anna gives Sarah a pill and encourages her to take it. It was ketamine which is known to sedate, incapacitate and cause short-term memory loss in people. It can also be used as a date rape drug. which an employee of a business befriending a young woman, lying about her affiliation with said business, and supplying the young girl with drugs at said business, that sounds like it's been ripped out of some sort of trafficking handbook.

41:21But again, people were like, we don't really know the relationship between Sarah and Anna. And let's say an employee did that. She could have just been a weird employee that does drugs. It's not representative of the club. and it's just what happens at the Burning Sun. There were other rumors that Burning Sun employees had undercover doctors to be around just in case a VIP or someone in the club overdosed on drugs so that these doctors would be available to try and resuscitate so that no one would get busted for drugs. This is a very speculative rumor, so take it with a grain of salt. But later with everything that comes out, it's not completely unbelievable.

41:58All in all, all these people that were coming out with their stories of the Burning Sun, they're getting brushed off. So of course if the police if their closest friends and family don't really take them seriously why would they go to a bigger audience and tell the world hey something weird is happening at the burning sun. It almost became normalized for alarming stories to come out and people would just laugh it off and say burning sun is crazy. So let's talk about the business model of the club. The burning sun club was attached to an upscale hotel. It's called Hotel Hotel La Meridia. I'm trying to pronounce it in the French way.

42:36And both club and hotel are going to be linked in a really dark way later. Burning Sun's business model was that once those club doors open and patrons start flowing in, two separate business operations are going to be running at the same time. The legal operation and the underground VIP operation. The legal operation runs like most popular high-end nightclubs. Weekends, there are lines wrapped around the building. Every young adult wants to party at this exclusive nightclub. It became a lifestyle brand. Even if you weren't necessarily having fun at the burning sun, just by taking a picture and tagging it on your Instagram story meant that you were someone.

43:15Not everyone could get in and that's why everyone wanted to get in. Of course, like other clubs, guys had to pay a cover fee to get in. But if you were a tall, attractive young woman, you would get in for free. Side note, I'm not a club goer, so this doesn't really impact me either way. And I'm not saying that women shouldn't get into clubs for free. I think women should be allowed into a lot of places for free, like the boardrooms. But we are a capitalistic society. And at the risk of sounding dramatic, if you are not the one paying, you are the product. A bunch of guys wanted to go to the club because they knew Burning Sun had high standards for women.

43:51So only the prettiest girls got in for free. A bunch of girls wanted to go to the club because they knew that in order for guys to enter, not only did they have to pay a cover fee, but Burning Sun also attracted a certain kind of man. And usually, if you saw a guy at a VIP table at the Burning Sun, that meant that he did very well for himself. And then, of course, there were just the people that were curious about what the hell was going on inside. So they're like, let me just go once. So within the first few weeks of opening, Burning Sun made around$1.4 million. after six months of being in business their earnings doubled and that's just the legal side of their business i would imagine they're bringing in a lot more money with their underground business when did they open 2017 i think okay yeah cover fees are a small source of the legal income the main money maker for the club's legal business was alcohol packages vip tables burning son made the money spending experience fun and lavish.

44:51If you purchased an alcohol set for your table, beautiful woman in short dresses would come with sparklers in bottles parading around you to let the whole club know that you just made a horrible financial decision. They had five main sets. The heaven set, which included five bottles of champagne for$10 ,000. continental set a 50 000 for 80 bottles of dom 80 i don't even know wait so the heaven set is the cheapest one heaven set is the cheapest one yeah for ten thousand dollars yeah wow continental set b included 30 bottles of jay-z champagne and it's 50 000 continental set c 40 bottles of a different high-end champagne$50 ,000.

45:38And lastly, the most expensive set was called the Mansoor set. Apparently, it was named after the vice president of the UAE, who is known in Korea as a world-class rich person. That's what they call him, literally, a world-class rich person. His net worth is$30 billion. So yeah, I would say so. He is a world-class rich person. He's part of the royal family oh i see yeah the set comprised of 22 bottles and it was priced at a hundred thousand dollars it's alleged that singly made up the mansoor set for fun thinking nobody's gonna spend a hundred thousand dollars but people did there was one taiwanese businesswoman that would come in and blow two hundred thousand dollars in one night a businesswoman well some sources report she's a businesswoman.

46:25I would say most sources report her to be the housewife of a businessman. Yes. She would later become an investor in the club and Seung Lee's bottomless purse. Side note about her. I don't know if she saw the future of the business. That's why she invested and spent so much time at the club. Or if she just had a love for Big Bang. I kind of get the feeling that she's just obsessed with Big Bang. She would bring her luxury designer bags to be signed by Big Bang members. it just seemed like she was a super rich fan so we went over the legal alcohol menu for club goers but in order to experience the full menu of the burning sun you have to be a consistent vip this is going to open you up to a whole new world when a vip walks in through the door first of all they get a separate entrance and if you spend around ten thousand dollars a night you get two guards to accompany you and they are also kind of like your butlers.

47:20The employees in the club know when a VIP walks in and they all cater to that person all night long, making sure that everything they could possibly want under the sun, they've got it. VIPs want to do drugs even though it's highly, highly illegal in South Korea? No problem. There's a VIP bathroom at the Burning Sun where allegedly drugs could be taken orally but also through the vein if that's what the VIP clients wanted. Full service. Side note, a lot of these employees would spend their time working as merchandisers. This is a very important position at the Burning Sun. So most merchandisers, like most establishments, they need to keep inventory of the alcohol.

47:59Make sure the bartenders are giving top shelf alcohol for someone that orders it and keeping the house vodka to the house vodka orders. Making sure that they always have champagne bottles in the back for the alcohol sets. Do they have enough straws, cups, glasses? They're in charge of all the merchandise, right? Inventory. But there's another side of merchandisers working at the Burning Sun. And we're mainly going to be talking about them moving forward when I talk about merchandisers. They are there to provide all other products, quote products, for the VIPs. The regular merchandisers take care of the alcohol, the food, the napkins, the crystal glasses for the whiskey.

48:36The VIP merchandisers are almost like personal shoppers, personal concierges, butlers for the night. and they usually try to plan ahead for the VIP's needs over the weekend. On Thursday, every merchandiser from the Burning Sun sends out text messages. The regular merchandisers will send out the weekend specials to the regular clients about imported champagne that they just received that's on special or a new claw-footed bathtub filled with ice and champagne or a new party theme with cover fee being slashed in half for a new DJ that's going to be featuring this weekend. The VIP merchandisers will send out similar text.

49:16This week's specials are almost like a restaurant's weekly specials catch of the day at supermarkets. But instead of promoting cover fees being discounted or alcohol sets being on special, they were sending pictures and videos of women, all unconscious women. They were naked and had just been essayed by other employees or vips the merchandisers believed that these women these victims could be victimized again so it's just a matter of which one the vips wanted under each picture or video of a girl was a price to drug and essay the girl they're selling essay they're not even selling sex they're selling rape so they're gonna what lure the girls back in wow so they get their numbers usually the weekend before when they're drugged and lure them back in and just like how the alcohol specials changed every week the girls changed every week the merchandisers would text the vip you can have sex with this one or how about this one or you can rape like this a kind of playing rape like this so they're referencing videos like you can also do it like this or text that read i can make you a reservation guest if you come i can get you this girl if there was more than one VIP client that wanted the same girl that weekend, they would open a bid.

50:38The clients would bid auction on the woman who had no idea that any of this was even happening. Many of the club investors and VIP clients were wealthy businessmen from other countries. So there were a lot of rich Chinese, Japanese, and Thai businessmen who would travel for work to Seoul and they would stop by the burning sun to let off steam. The merchandisers were really good at knowing exactly what kind of girls each of them wanted. They always stated that the Chinese VIPs really liked Gangnam 언니s. So Gangnam is like the Beverly Hills of Seoul. And 언니 means older sister. It's a really nice way of saying they like faces with a lot of work done.

51:15So when they knew that a group of Chinese VIPs were coming in, they would send them the weekly specials filled with Gangnam 언니s. It's like none of the VIPs wanted sex workers. That's the part a lot of netizens were infuriated by. Because regardless of how anybody feels about sex work, if it is between two consenting adults, there is a level of understanding there. There is a transaction that's being made. And in the best, best case scenario, it's a win win. Both parties get exactly what they want. And I say that in defense of the sex workers, right? Because usually they get the shorter end of the stick.

51:48Now, anyway, it would be a bit more acceptable if this club was illegally running some sort of brothel. But that's not what's happening. There's straight up sex trafficking. I mean, this is like human trafficking. None of the VIPs wanted sex workers. They wanted a girl next door truly did not know that she was getting drugged and being filmed while being sexually assaulted. They wanted victims. That's what they wanted. But let's say they didn't choose a girl through text ahead of time. They showed up without advance notice. The merchandisers would go out and pick out the girls that they felt best suited the VIPs types and bring them into the VIP room.

52:23So they just walk around on the floor. Yeah. And just any girl that had come to spend money at their establishment, a potential victim. Or the VIP would already have their eyes on a girl or two in the club and they would just be brought in. They would request, I want that one and that one. The employees would go drug those girls and bring them in. And just to reiterate this point home, sorry if it feels redundant, but it is a huge part of this case. These women that they're picking to bring to the VIP rooms are not employees of the club and they are not sex workers. and I don't say that to say employees or sex workers are not as important but I'm saying if it was an employee or a sex worker they would be there for work like these women literally came as customers have no idea that they're being chosen to be victimized they're like Min Jung just hanging out with friends the assaults would either happen right in the VIP rooms or upstairs in one of the hotel rooms of the La Meridia and the hotel also happens to be an investor in the club So there is a question of how big and how well thought out this operation was from start to finish.

53:27The hotel owns close to 50 % of the club. Okay. The speculation being perhaps that was the whole point that Burning Sun was created for this reason. It's not a club that happened to fall into sex trafficking, but rather a front for sex trafficking. I think the unsettling thing about this case is both operations were done pretty out in the open. This is a club. It's not like one of those money laundering schemes where a front is a churro shop and behind the scenes is God knows what. We'll never know because the public will never see it, hear about it, know anything about it. But with Burning Sun, they're running these operations in front of all the club goers.

54:07I would liken this to the feeling of going to a supermarket, shopping for beef, not knowing that there are security cameras watching you and another group of people behind those cameras shopping for human meat. Like that's the feeling, I'm sure. And because nobody really knew what was going on inside the burning club, aside from victims who were staying quiet out of fear, people were lining up, fighting, paying to get into the burning sun. a place that would turn out to be a literal hell for the victims and it all gets exposed by a 29 year old man by the name of Kim Sang-kyu we're gonna call him Kim for the rest of the story November 24th 2018 Kim went to Burning Sun with a bunch of his friends it was his friend's birthday they're all there to have a good time it also happened to be the first snow which is a very special day in Korea we're supposed to make a wish and spend it with your loved ones it's a very cute romantic day so Kim decides to go outside He's in the burning sun and the snow starts falling.

55:06So he's like, oh my God, I'm going to go outside just quickly to see the snow. He kind of parts with his friends and on his way out, he sees a woman half passed out, barely conscious, being dragged out by a man. She looks like she's trying to grab on to passerbys. She doesn't want to leave. It's clear this is not consensual. She clearly wants help. So Kim decides, I'm going to help. He decides to block the man from taking this woman. And this man happened to be a VIP client. And the employees of the Burning Sun did not take well to Kim standing in the VIP's way. Wow. So they're like blatantly.

55:41Oh, in front of people. Wow. Yeah. The employees also did not appreciate that Kim was now standing in their way of making a fat tip. So they drag Kim outside in front of Burning Sun CCTV cameras into the snowy road and they start beating him. They start pummeling Kim. The club executive was one of the main perpetrators. he trips Kim with his foot, grabs Kim by the hair to hold his head in place, uses his other hand to punch him in the face repeatedly. It was getting to the point where even one of the bouncers was like, hey, let's chill out a little bit on this customer. But this executive is not listening.

56:20Another bouncer jumps in to help hold Kim in place so it's easier for the club executive to hit him. At one point, the club executive even walks away from Kim, who's on the road just sitting there because now he has three broken ribs. It's painful to even try and get up. This is not a light beating. The club executive walks over to his little bouncers, takes off his jacket, only to walk back over and continue beating Kim. Then when he's finally done, he just walks back into the club with the bouncers, leaving Kim on the ground. Kim is confused, scared, but also, rightfully, really, really, really pissed.

56:56He calls the police, who gets there 12 minutes later, and he's explaining to the police what happened. And he's pointing at the CCTV cameras like, hey, it's all on there. Everything that happened, you're going to see it on there. So go look at it. The police don't really do anything. And Kim is like, what are you doing? I said the person that did this to me is in there. He went that way. So go into the club and find him. They're still not really doing anything. Frustrated, Kim kicks the trash can in front of the VIP entrance and they still don't do anything. Finally, officers decide to go into the club, leaving Kim outside.

57:28they talk with the security they talk with the club executive that beat up kim and once they get back outside of the club they arrest kim they tackle kim to the ground and arrest kim they handcuff him from the back which i imagine is quite painful as he has three broken ribs employees are oddly seen helping the police arrest kim which is just really suspicious if you think about it because yeah yeah yeah exactly even if some even if a client did something wrong and they're getting arrested on the premises why would you help like there's enough cops already kim would state that as he's being dragged into the police station the officers intentionally tripped him and since his hands were handcuffed behind his back he had nothing to break his fall except with his face an officer tripped him yeah he had busted his face had a severe nosebleed he claimed the police also kicked him and hit him several times where he had already broken his ribs He had several broken ribs and they still refused medical care.

58:28He was seen at the police station yelling, Seung Lee's club, you guys got money, they do hard drugs and they do marijuana in there. January 28th, 2019, Kim starts going on interviews and making posts about what happened to him inside the burning sun. His main accusations were, women are being drugged at the club. Police are getting paid by the club to look the other way. He said, screams could sometimes be heard coming from the VIP rooms of girls begging for help. These are masked by club security and then the paid off police department nearby protects the club from legal liability. The police aren't here to protect the public.

59:02They're corrupt. Kim started a Blue House petition and it received more than 200 ,000 signatures in just one day. The petition detailed specific drugging and assault cases that allegedly happened within the Burning Sun Club, as well as their sketchy and corrupt relationship with the local city police. It gained so much attention, the president at the time promised to have his team look into it. But when the Blue House looked into it, the police just turned in random reports that Kim was committing sexual assault in the club. They argued, look, Kim is the one that was essaying people in the club.

59:35He was caught, dragged outside by employees and beaten. Should he have been beaten like that? No, but the employees just really hate scum of the earth essayers, you know? So we came out and we arrested the guy. With this, all the news outlets started reporting Kim as some sort of sexual criminal, which it's a whole long story we're going to get into later but the burning sun even came out with an official statement stating Kim was an offender and they had no choice but to kick him out to support their statement they submitted two complaints from women who allegedly were sexually assaulted by Kim at the club wow they are really just fabricating a whole reality yeah out of nothing wow and it's working yeah come on how do you compete with that suddenly the story very quickly becomes a he said she said situation rather than a very serious allegation of sex trafficking inside of a club.

1:00:25But netizens did notice something strange. The person who filed a complaint against Kim saying that she was sexually harassed by him at the club was an employee of the club. Not saying that they can't be sexually harassed by clients, but like she was a merchandiser at the club. It was Anna, the drug runner. People didn't know that yet, but still it was just weird. Right after he alleges that there's an underground ring happening at the club, an employee of the club, says that he is the essay-er. Kim said that he was charged unrighteously and inaccurately on seven charges, including defamation, indecent acts, criminal battery, and more.

1:01:03And our team tries really hard to not make something about something that it's not, right? But there was a feeling by the K-Netizens and by a lot of people that had gone to the burning sun. okay a man has spoken out about the club and sure it's kind of a he said she said situation but a lot of netizens were still on this man's side and supporting him and it kind of felt safe enough for women to come forward now because if it had been a woman whistleblower to this there had been other small cases of women trying to anonymously come forward that something weird was happening at the burning sun they were slut shamed to hell and back but now that there was a male at the center of this whistleblowing situation right they felt like okay maybe we can also help bolster his story because we have our own stories about the burning sun damn that says a lot yeah a lot i mean just like the crime itself says a lot about the violence against a certain gender and then this just reiterates that.

1:02:05So, you know, like I said before that, it was people like Min Jung, people who are getting slut shamed, victim blamed. And now a man comes out and they're like, okay, maybe this is our chance to expose what's really been happening. So because of Kim, a lot of anonymous women start coming forward with their stories of the burning sun. Many of these stories would confirm Kim's allegations of police corruption because many of these women reported their essays to the police and they did nothing. It was revealed that the drug most commonly used to essay women at the club was GHB. It's called 물풍 in Korea.

1:02:36Well, at least that's what most commonly used slang for it. It's also called liquid ecstasy or the fantasy drug. It is the most commonly used date rape drug even here in the US. It comes in a clear liquid form or white powder that becomes completely dissolved and invisible in liquid. It is odorless, tasteless, and colorless. There was a journalist who experimented by taking GHB herself under the care of a doctor. She was so loopy. she alternates from being passed out to being awake and like writing things on her hand and talking about her mom she doesn't remember a single thing none of it But that's not the only damage.

1:03:16Long use of GHB can result in poor memory and even brain damage. If you take a lot while consuming alcohol, it could even result in death. The victim usually starts becoming semi-conscious just from one sip. It's like the lights are turned off suddenly. But it can't really be detected that well. It's often compared to a state of dementia. You can walk around by yourself, but you don't remember walking around. And everything feels separated from your own free will. At the Burning Sun, some employees would request to be brought zombies for VIP room 3, for example. They'd be like, okay, we need zombies in room 3.

1:03:52Because GHB makes the victims able to walk and talk, but they're not there. They're not making any decisions themselves. So they know that these victims are either entirely unconscious or their cognitive abilities are all heavily affected by the drug. So they know damn well that there is no consent that is given. and the worst part of ghb is that the drug is basically untraceable i mean yeah it's not untraceable but it's not for long so that's how the girl tested negative yes so depending on the person the drug can be completely metabolized anywhere between five to 24 hours of use meaning if you go home feeling like something very sinister happened you feel like okay i need to get my thoughts straight before i go to the police station because i can't walk in there and say I don't know, something happened, I don't know.

1:04:40But by that point, the drug could be completely out of your system. Wow. And you would be labeled as a flower snake in Korea. A flower snake is a term for something that doesn't really happen that often, so I don't know why there's a whole term for it. But it's referencing a woman who seduces men, sleeps with them, and then wakes up the next morning deciding to sue them for money. In Korea, the drug is often described with this phrase, I did this action, but I don't remember doing this action. Which I think is a really good indicator of how hard it is in a place like Korea to prove that you've been drugged and assaulted and have the police take you seriously.

1:05:16At this point, everything starts snowballing. It went from a man was being assaulted and maybe a single VIP was assaulting a woman or at least trying to. Then it snowballs into no, they are running a sex trafficking ring and there are many, many women getting drugged and assaulted by many different VIPs and the employees are all in on it. and the big question on everyone's mind, which, yeah, I don't know if it was the most appropriate question at the time, but it was, how much of this did K-pop idol Lee Seung Lee know about it? As one of the co-owners of the club, people wanted a public statement from him ASAP.

1:05:52Did he or did he not know that his employees were running a rape business at his club? Seung Lee's dad did an interview with Media First, where he claimed Seung Lee was blindsided by all of this. He stated that his son had businesses everywhere, and he's still an idol after all at the end of the day. These businesses are not his main business. As much as he wants to be super involved at the Burning Sun, he just didn't have the time. And now, now he's super shocked and disappointed just like all of you, the public. The dad said, and I quote, There's too many speculative articles about this Burning Sun case.

1:06:27They're only taking the other side story, and it's unfortunate that they're only focusing on that. just because it's called the Seung Lee Club does not mean that my son was directly involved with the things that had happened. He would later go on to insinuate that the media just wanted to attach Seung Lee so heavily to the crime because it makes for a better story, makes for a better headline. The dad even went on to say that Seung Lee didn't even own the club anymore and that he wasn't in a position to give instructions or give orders at the club. He had a CEO in place for that. So Seung Lee is not the CEO of Burning Sun, just a co-founder.

1:07:04His dad goes on to say, I talked to Seung Lee today. He said his fans and everyone will want to hear an explanation. He sounded like he was having a hard time. He can't help but feel misunderstood. My son is not in a position to directly work at Burning Sun. He's rarely in Korea and he's busy with his ramen franchise. Yeah, he has a ramen franchise and solo concerts abroad. This time, I'm sure he really felt the burn. It's unfortunate. But last month, he received the 2019 Korea Consumer Evaluation Best Brand Award, but none of that was covered by the media. Instead, it comes out as if he's a criminal.

1:07:41His true intentions will be revealed through the investigation, but it's upsetting that even before the results come out, he's accused of doing hard drugs, he did a drug urine test because of this issue, and the results showed nothing was wrong. My son feels wronged. Fake news is being spread by the media. he's not a child that could hurt others my son is having a hard time especially because the media is making things up my heart hurts too then Seung Lee did an interview of his own where he stated he never bribed any police officers or a police station he stated even if he wanted to he didn't have that much power he was basically just a boy that sang on stage he said that all he did was lend his name and fame to help the club gain more foreign fans and have more club goers come and sometimes he would DJ at the club but that was really his involvement in the club he said I don't even know the financials of the club yeah he goes on to throw his business partner of Yuri Holdings the company that owns 20 % of the club that is co-founded by Seung Lee so his dad is saying Seung Lee my son doesn't even own shares of the company of Burning Sun and like technically Seung Lee doesn't own shares of the Burning Sun but he owns a company called Yuri Holdings that owns 20 % of the club wow and Seung Lee is like you know I heard that my business partner was talking about women and asking for women and trying to buy sex and I tried to stop him but he wouldn't listen to me and I don't really hold that kind of power over a business partner so there's nothing I can do if that's an adult you know throws him under the bus.

1:09:09Sing Lee promises to the media and to the public that he's going to do anything to help with the investigation and he wants the truth out there as much as anybody else. Of course their responses make the case blow up more but on top of that the business partner that he threw under the bus is actually married to a then very famous actress by the name of Park Han Biel. So he's like, hey, you know that actress? Well, her husband is like looking for sex workers. So of course, the case blows up even more, right? But at least Seung Lee's fans are super relieved. They felt like we dodged a bullet. Seung Lee is still good.

1:09:45He's still the guy that we know and love. Other people doubted that. They thought Seung Lee knew exactly what was going on. He's the Great Gatsby of Korea. And just like the Great Gatsby, Seung Lee has a raging inferiority complex. To give you context on Seung Lee, he was part of a five-person K-pop group called Big Bang. And I feel like for anyone who knows even a little bit about Korean entertainment or even really Korean culture at this point, Big Bang is just one of those groups that needs no introduction. So I'm going to try and keep it brief for those that are just not in the K-pop world.

1:10:16Big Bang is like the one direction of K-pop Meaning they will always be remembered At one point as being one of the most Iconic boy bands in K-pop history I'm not saying right now I'm just saying at one point they were And I'm not saying that they're better than your faves Or even like they paved the way or anything But they were really really popular Yeah like between what 2008 to 2012 Like they dominated the world Dominated yeah It is unclear how much revenue the group generated or at least we couldn't find out an exact figure. But we did find out that they brought in$800 million in ticket sales for their concerts during their career.

1:10:55That's probably a very small cut of the overall revenue that they generated. That's not including album sales, streaming revenue, appearance fees, ambassadorships, royalties from music. That's just concert sales is$800 million. So they're an influential group and Seung Lee always felt like the black sheep of the group. it's pretty evident in hindsight that he had an intense inferiority complex while he was part of Big Bang, and it does seem like there were a few pain points for him. Singley applied to be a trainee for the K-pop group. That would be later Big Bang. There was a series of cutthroat competitions till a group of boys was narrowed down.

1:11:32They just wanted five members. Everything was ruthlessly judged and criticized by YG, who is picking the trainees. They had four members already picked, and it was down to the last spot. Seungli and another boy were competing neck and neck for it. Seungli barely made it. It was so neck and neck. It was like, I guess we'll go with Seungli. It wasn't like, oh man, he won by a landslide. That was so good. He really stood out. It was such a close call. And that type of complex, he felt like, I'm not as good as the other members. YG was so certain on the other members. but for me it was kind of it was kind of iffy now that kind of complex doesn't necessarily make someone a bad person fans actually fell in love with singli for the sides of him that were shown they remember during the early days of big bang there were reality shows that they would do that showcased what their lives were like as trainees and they would all be crammed together inside these very not so great apartments that the company was paying for they would have to clean up after themselves after training and dancing for like 18 hours a day and singli being the youngest of the group.

1:12:39In Korean culture, that means he has to do a lot more chores than the others. He has to do things like wake everyone up, which is harder than you think. The oldest of the group, Top, he refuses to wake up. So it's standard to see Seung Lee go into the kitchen, grab pots and pans to bang together to wake up his Hyung. Another member would start vacuuming the wall on top of Top's face to try and wake him up because he's just, I guess, a heavy sleeper. And it's kind of like a heartwarming moment. It's relatable. It's funny. And considering how young the boys were at this point it was endearing but singly was always being compared to his other bandmates i would say i remember and this is just from memory and not research g dragon top taehyung like they had so many stands from the people that i knew personally singly just didn't really have a lot of stands from what i remember he did seem to get a good chunk of hate comments people joked they didn't like the size of his head that it was really big they also said that his legs were too short and that other members were very good looking but singly was um had a relatable looking face they said he said he especially didn't like the comments about his head because and i quote it's not like i can get a head reduction but even that moment is a good example of why a lot of people started to stand singly he seemed like the underdog and he was not shy to show that he was vulnerable and he wasn't like trying to be like i'm actually really good guys he was embracing it he's like yeah i am the ugliest of the group but what am i gonna do about it right he said he was always anxious about never having enough money and he said g dragon earns extra money from songwriting and writes to the copyrights of their songs because he writes a lot of their music top does acting in movies and dramas taehyung does solo albums and concerts suddenly said that he was anxious because all of them were so diverse in their earnings and their income and he said i am making quote one percent of what g dragon is making wow and like a lot of people with a potential inferiority complex he starts overcompensating it felt like he's desperately trying to make something work and i just want to make it clear i'm sure his idol life like a lot of idols if not every idol in south korea is cutthroat is hard potentially miserable and rough but from what we can tell the man is not starving he's not paycheck to paycheck so when he's saying i'm making one percent of what g dragon is making he's not out here working a restaurant job after his training like he's doing he's talking about like at that point if top is doing acting and solo like they are already popping at that point like he's a millionaire yeah he's killing it like as a part of big bang like but he kind of made it his personality and a lot of fans felt bad for him.

1:15:19Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's like, I just want to preface, we don't need to feel bad for him. But his image at that point is just like this soft, good boy, like very, like little, you know, very soft energy. People love it. People loved him, yes. It's a nice guy image. Yes, he said he just wanted to keep up with other members so he learned English, Chinese, and Japanese. He opened up one of his first businesses, a training camp for idols. A lot of big names came out of there. A lot of big names. huh so he did a training camp i was gonna list some names but i don't even want them to be like associated with singly but like a lot of big names came and they don't even know like singly and they're not connected with anything that he did but just in case but yeah lots of big names closed down after a few years because one of the teachers had gotten romantically involved with a student not a good look he moves on with other business ventures and by 2018 he finally made a name for himself outside of Seung Lee of Big Bang.

1:16:16He was hosting multiple talk shows, going on TV shows, acting in dramas, doing promotional activities for YG Entertainment. That's the agency that created Big Bang. He calls the founder of YG, Mr. YG Entertainment himself. He calls him Appa, which is dad, because of how close they are. He started a Belgian waffle cafe for his mom to run. He co-opened a restaurant called Monkey Museum in China. He had a ramen franchise called Ayuri Ramen and it had multiple locations in Korea and even a branch in Kuala Lumpur. He owned 10 % shares of a cosmetic medical company called Dr. Golderm. He was serving as a brand ambassador for a new music label launched by Sony Music.

1:16:57He was heavily involved in YGX, which is a sub-label under YG Entertainment. He would also go on to build this image of himself as the great Gatsby of Korea, which was great marketing for all of his night businesses, like his bars and clubs.

1:17:24So now we have a potential inferiority complex, love for lavish parties, lots of businesses in the nightlife party scene. But still, that doesn't make someone complicit in something as serious as a sex trafficking scheme. Did he really know what was going on? His fans argued, absolutely not. They felt like he was innocent. This is Seung Lee that we're talking about. Do people not remember? A lot of people dug up an old clip of Seung Lee and it had been on a TV show called I Live Alone. He was talking to another actress. It's a reality show. They're sitting there talking and the actress recently had a baby.

1:17:57And out of nowhere, she asks Seung Lee, I can give you some if you want. And he's like, give me what? The soap I use. Breast milk soap. and Seung Lee looks very shocked. Oh, what is it made from? It's soap made from a mother's breast milk. Seung Lee puts his cup down to take a few seconds to gather his thoughts. Breast milk is very healthy, yeah? Because he doesn't want to offend her, but he still doesn't know what to say in that moment. And it's a really innocent, comical moment. The actress keeps explaining the whole process of how the soap is made and Seung Lee is coughing because he's shocked by all of this information and he's just trying to be polite.

1:18:40So he says, okay, yeah, thank you. Yes, of course, I would love some. How many do you want? I have a lot. You can just text me. He's like basically about to throw up some water if he has any in his mouth and he's text you to ask for the breast milk. It seemed like the actress was genuinely having a fun time shocking Seung Lee messing around with him. And Seung Lee comes off super naive, super innocent, super polite. So fans are like, you're telling me that this guy that's shy when someone offers him breast milk soap is a brilliant mastermind behind a sex trafficking ring? Breast milk boy? Do you know what it means to bomb a chat?

1:19:27Usually friends will start group chats on kakao talk which is like the whatsapp or wechat of korea and when they're done with the group chat or if they said enough inappropriate comments or told enough secrets on that group chat someone will text blow up the chat one by one the notifications come in blank left the chat blank left the chat and once every single person leaves the chat everything in that chat gets automatically deleted by kakao so it's not like you can leave the chat but still see what's in the chat, it's gone. The chat history deleted along with any videos and pictures sent into the chat.

1:20:00When the Burning Sun group would feel like the chat had gotten a little too incriminating, when they had texted too many pictures and videos of unconscious women, when they had talked about too many VIPs essaying unconscious women, they would periodically text out, bomb the chat, blow it up, which helps with making sure that if someone's phone is ever taken in by the police, if someone's phone is ever lost. They might see the current group chats that are probably very incriminating. They won't see years and years of incriminating activity. It's almost like an insurance policy to everybody in that chat that they were gonna at least cover their asses.

1:20:35And it was in everyone's best interest to bomb the chat, to delete it. So they thought. JJY was part of these group chats. And some quick context to JJY. He's what they call a multiplayer in Korea. He's a singer, songwriter, TV personality. He's known for having this wild fun personality. So a lot of talk shows love him. He's also very, very good at singing. He never left the chats. He was part of all the Burning Sun chats. He was part of every single Seung Lee chat about unconscious women, selling women, bidding women. He never left it because he felt so sad to part with all the amazing pictures and videos of women being victimized.

1:21:18so he always pretended to leave the chat last but the truth is he never left any of them he kept each and every single one and when his ex-girlfriend reported him for taking videos of her without her consent and he would turn his phone in to the tech company he would be the one to bring the whole operation down wow so even when he did that he thought he can just break his phone and he's good Yeah, but this is the tech company that recovered the data from Sewol Ferry victims' phones. So they knew what they were doing and they take their jobs very seriously. But he was like, oh, well, I basically smashed my phone, so it's fine.

1:22:00It was not fine. Even years before this, there was an incident that felt like foreshadowing to everything that was about to happen. JJY was on a show with Jiko, another celebrity, and Jiko joked about JJY's golden phone. and immediately because they're on set filming a show jj y's face changes for a split second he's not as like he drops his face mask not his literal face mask but he drops his smile and he has this very sour look on his face it's very much the stop talking about this look what's a golden phone people thought golden phone is in these sex videos now but chico would later be involved in the burning sun controversy because netizens accused him of knowing what jj y was doing on his phone he's like you probably saw the videos then yeah why would he if he does why would he put that information in tv right that's what seco is saying he's saying guys i meant golden phone like sometimes people use it to refer to someone who has a lot of good connections so if you were to have beyonce and taylor swift on speed dial you have a golden phone because you have their numbers and so he was briefly involved in the burning sun scandal but ultimately jjy's golden phone would bring down some of the biggest names in k-pop february 26 2019 the first round of messages are released to the public and multiple celebrities would go down after the release along with investors the management team and employees of burning sun there were a few key people in the group chats choy jung-hoon wholesome singer from ft island boy group yeah ee jung-hyun idol from boy band CN Blue, Kwon Hyuk-jun, brother of Girls' Generation Yuri, JJY, singer TV host, celebrity TV personality, and of course, Seung-li of Big Bang, owner of The Burning Sun.

1:23:48And it clearly shows that Seung-li is involved. He is texting employees about investors that are coming and he writes, give them everything they want, call the girls over. There's also a guest coming from Taiwan. Employee responds, which girls can we call right now? Oh man, it's the Chinese already? Oh my God. Take care of them so they don't get involved with others. Yes, I will stick by the VIPs. Sung Lee texts, you better do it right and make no mistakes. Another business partner tells the employee, put a boy in there too. Someone who can serve redacted. A boy who can't speak English. Someone like redacted.

1:24:24Employee responds, okay, we'll do. I'll do the job well. Sung Lee even text and which girl are you going to bring get the kids who give it easily get the kids who gives easily yeah like as in is easy to essay is the presumption here jj y is randomly in that group chat and he's like i bet the chinese like plastic surgery girls and singly is just like all right just do well another partner of the business text into the group chat i'm preparing the whores right now. So when the two whores come, I will guide them and make sure they end up smoothly with the VIPs in the hotel room. Singli text, chairman's guests are also coming.

1:25:03I think we need to set up a separate party for them. Let's give them back a hundred times what we received from them. Guys, please look for any pretty looking girls who can possibly speak some Japanese. Let's pack the place for Christmas rather than us having fun. Let's experience a Christmas of finding satisfaction and making others happy this time. Let's give the chairman a great time and make him happy for all the summers he sent us yachts with staff and chefs from japan to pusan for us to enjoy bro like he is the fucking worst because he's literally manipul masterminding this whole sex ring he is the culprit he is the mastermind behind this whole operation like he's the worst he's like the ones connecting everyone like none of this would have even been possible without him yeah he's doing this for the money and profit and he's literally selling woman for money yeah yeah i mean i feel like a lot of media outlets i don't know if it's legality or they're just trying to keep it professional but honestly he's just straight up in my personal opinion like a pimp like yeah like a disgusting yeah vile trafficking pimp like honestly yeah in another conversation, Seung Lee talks about a girl that he likes and he writes, redacted is actually art.

1:26:20I admit it. JJY texts, I touch the hell out of her boobs. Her boobs big. They're fake. Seung Lee texts, redacted is coming. Like a girl is coming. And JJY says, stop these foreigners from coming. Seung Lee texts, you fucking bitch. There are investors. Then another conversation, and Seung Lee writes, fuck, the party last night was a hit. Another idol says it was successful. Seung Lee writes, that girl, I admit it, I'm fucking hooked. Her older sister is fucking good too. Seung Lee said that? Yeah. JJY texts, yeah, her sister was a surprise. There were a lot of hidden gems yesterday. Friend texts, but there seems to be hella guys around too.

1:27:08Seung Lee says, we have to steal. Let's all eat domestic girls together in Korea and then get married to foreign girls. friend text why is blank so pretty jj y says she's the bitch both mr b and i ate lol singly text and i plan on eating her too anyone here got her number an employee of burning sun text if you do it with that bitch it's guaranteed a secret she's very i don't know anything singly text lolol she has amnesia she doesn't even remember who she does it with jjy text nope not amnesia just r word lolol singly text could be she just doesn't remember jjy is angry he says when she first met me she was all bsing about i don't watch tv so i don't know you but after she got drunk she was whining and asking me to sing for her singly says want me to tell you something more funny or rather absurd i opened my eyes and i was like why am i sleeping with si nuna when i was like i thought i was sleeping with these other two girls where did they go lolol in another chat singli is asking a vip client about what kind of woman they like and the client responds i'm not sure south asian men like white skin so someone with fair skin and innocent and pretty features or the opposite just sexy girls like blank blank and blank who are innocent yet sexy or just a super fancy glamorous girl those types of girls wouldn't that type of style work?

1:28:42We want over 160 centimeters tall. Thinner. It's not too picky though. Girls from Korea will do. There are other chat logs where it seems like Seung Lee is sending girls on trips with VIP clients. He asks a VIP about an Indonesia trip that he has coming up and the VIP says that they want ones that are under 10k per person. Seung Lee writes, I understand. It's 10k per person, right Mr. CEO? He proceeds to send pictures of five different girls and he writes, number one doesn't talk that much and kinds of loves money she also has aspects where she doesn't have much charisma and drinking scenes but her visuals are great cry emoji in another conversation jj y texts the group that he's boarding the plane soon and he says i will fuck korean bitches as soon as i arrive i'm gonna invite them to my house before going out german bitches have huge asses his idle friends write get back safely fly safe an employee of the burning sun writes i bet german and pussies smell like sausages.

1:29:38JJY says, not bad. LOL, we had fun. A lot of netizens noted that it's kind of crazy that they're so polite to each other, even saying things like, get back safely, have a safe flight, we miss you. Meanwhile, they talk about women, I mean, in the most degrading ways possible. Another super controversial conversation involved the idols talking about who Seung Lee had sex with yesterday, and they asked, was she delicious? And they said things like, I want her number. and one person wrote yes she is comfort woman level let me tell you comfort woman is a very very sensitive topic for most koreans it is aside from the crimes the most horrifying comment that was found in the group chats chinese too it's yes problem so to give context comfort woman was one of the worst atrocities that the japanese government committed towards korean and chinese women and a lot of the victims.

1:30:33So when Japan colonized Korea along with various other countries in Asia, so I don't believe that it was just Korean and Chinese, they promised a bunch of women from all these different countries, but we're just talking about Korean women here, that they could work in factories to make just enough to barely survive. They're like, you can barely get by and you can maybe feed your kid. But because these women had no other choice, nothing else, they were basically forced to agree, not knowing that the Japanese government never intended them to work in factories. They were actually forced into sex trafficking.

1:31:06They were locked up and made to be assaulted by Japanese soldiers every single day. Comfort women have come forward to say that they were essayed at least 30 times a day while they were held captive. I could go into further detail, but it's very, very depressing. They were impregnated. They contracted diseases. They were experimented on, tortured. so the topic of comfort women is highly sensitive additionally because it's not really something that happened long long ago to multiple generations before us many of the comfort women the victims were elderly women in korea i believe the last few are still alive many of them have since passed but they have yet to receive an apology from the japanese government and a lot of the tensions in current time between the Korean government and the Japanese government, not to get too political, is this is one of those things.

1:32:02Many Korean citizens want apologies for the comfort women before they pass on. And the Japanese government has refused to acknowledge their crimes. And here we have the Korean faces of the entertainment world making fun of comfort women and recreating the tragedy, so to speak. I mean, even if we take out the literal crimes committed in the group chats, even just the way they talk about women, while they have a predominantly female audience as idols is despicable. It's filled with crude, emotionally violent, disgusting comments and jokes. And side note about the messages being released, some people hate the tech employee for not turning in the tech sooner.

1:32:43They state that if it were them, they would have turned it in sooner. And that could be a thousand percent true, especially as a woman. I'm like, yeah, maybe I would have turned it in sooner. Few things to note. Police corruption is really bad anywhere and in Korea it's the same. There were already strong indications in the data that the tech employees saw that high high high up police officials were involved in the trafficking ring if you will. So what would you do? Go to a different officer? What if they all answered to the same person? How do you know that person's immediate boss isn't involved as well?

1:33:12And in Korea when you mess with the police as a normal person you might be ending your life right then and there. They could easily get you fired from your job. They could get you outcasted. You could lose everything, your family, your livelihood, you would be on the street. And guess what? Burning Sun would probably still be up and running and victimizing people. And in Korea, defamation laws are honestly dumb. Like they're not even defamation laws. So in the US, defamation is when someone knowingly states a lie about another person claiming it to be a fact. So the basis is you are lying about someone else and you're not allowed to do that, which makes sense.

1:33:48In Korea, it's even if you tell the truth about someone and that someone doesn't like what you said because it hurt their feelings or hurt their reputation, they can sue you for defamation, which a lot of people in Korea even think it's very goofy because that's not really even the definition of defamation. But here we are. This employee could have been sued to the point of having nothing but the clothes on his back because they're not even dealing with one celebrity or one rich business owner. They're dealing with a whole roster of them, all cozy with politicians and police. What chance does this tech employee stand?

1:34:22And even if they went through all of that, the burning sun could still be up and running. So I don't know if I would sit here and say, oh my gosh, well, that person is messed up. I do think it is frustrating that they sat on the information for three years while people continue to be victimized. But I think that there's so much cultural societal nuance that goes into a decision like that and i think that we could technically all sit here and be like i could never do that but i don't know i guess but it's like how powerful are these people all of these people combined and who can he go to like really you don't know it seems like all the people in charge are in on this and technically he committed a very big crime by keeping the data yeah so he broke the law as well now i will say that when he finally did turn in the evidence after the whistleblower came.

1:35:10So he saw that and he was like, I think, you know, along with all the other anonymous women that were coming out, he was like, I think this is the time that people would actually listen and not think that these are fake. He was very smart. He hired an attorney who was also very smart. And they decided instead of handing it over to the police who were foaming at the mouth for this, they handed it over to the Civil Rights Commission office. And that is how a lot of it became public because the police would have never made this public. which again, I don't know, maybe he could have done that three years ago maybe it wouldn't have worked all we know is, yeah, it's out now many of the involved parties continue to state that these text messages are fake but a lot of these texts are the foundation of the investigation into Burning Sun by the prosecutor's office which netizens feel like that wouldn't have been the case if there was a question of the validity of them and the CEO of the Burning Sun even said if Seungri's Kakao messages from three years ago are a crime aren't all korean men criminals insinuating that all these jokes about sex work and women and all of that is just how men talk wow which is the most absurd thing to say ever but it also does kind of confirm the validity of the chat logs but to cover our basis it is alleged for now that these are the real messages between the involved parties but naturally netizens had visceral reactions to the released alleged messages a lot of fans were devastated that they supported someone like this there were even chat logs that described how jj y and four of his friends took turns on a victim who was drugged they joked about how she woke up saying she doesn't even remember anything other than having a drink with them they also talked about how they thought it was so funny they had gang essayed her while taking pictures and then the next morning jj y went to a fan sign So, I mean, it's crazy he had the nerve to look his predominantly female fans in the eyes while smiling at them when he had just done one of the worst things that you could do to a woman the night before.

1:37:12The SMPA, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Academy, officially take over the case early 2019. Media is all over this case. Netizens want to know who's involved, how much they knew, and they wanted all of them to go down. The shares of the Burning Sun were split like this. 42 % owned by the hotel. 8 % owned by the hotel's chairman 20 % owned by Taiwanese businesswoman Lin Samo 20 % owned by Yuri Holdings which was allegedly set up by Seung Lee implying that he has potentially 20 % interest in the club but Yuri Holdings was also technically run by his friend Yoo In-seok Yoo In-seok is also married to a famous actress by the name of Park Hyun-byul remember I was telling you about her?

1:37:54and 10 % is owned by a businessman Lee Moon-ho He was close friends with Sing Lee and he is said to have been running the day-to-day operations. He is the CEO of the Burning Sun. So all the foreign investors, they left the country and were safe from backlash, including the Taiwanese businesswoman who owned 20 % of the Burning Sun. The rest of the Korean celebrities and business owners were left to be investigated. Burning Sun and Sing Lee were also under investigation for tax evasion, which really doesn't feel that significant compared to the other allegations. But I think that it does shine light on a lot of the things that he was doing.

1:38:27It was suspected that with all of the business from his VIP clients, with the selling of SA, essentially, allegedly, and a lot of the alcohol packages, he would encourage payment in cash. It's alleged that he was evading taxes, money laundering. You remember the restaurant that he had, Monkey Museum? They called it a restaurant, but it was like a nightclub. He tried to file it under a restaurant so that he could pay less taxes. His ramen business was making a suspicious amount of money. Turns out he was laundering money from Burning Sun through the ramen franchise. It was a whole lot. It was a mess.

1:39:00Like, I think it also shows he was heavily involved. You know, he knew what he was doing. So while everybody is being investigated, Sing Lee announces his retirement from the entertainment industry. And it's a very off-putting statement. He's basically like, I think it's a good idea to retire at this point. I decided to retire because the issue has caused so much social controversy and I've been criticized and hated by the public for the past month and a half. And now with all the investigative agencies in the country investigating me, I am being labeled as a national traitor. I cannot allow myself to cause harm to everyone around me just to survive.

1:39:34Netizens hated his apology. It felt very, you guys blew this whole thing into something that it's not. So now I'm just gonna retire then. I don't wanna face your criticism. Also, it had this aura of, I don't know what's going on. I'm just as confused as you are. You know, it's like, what's going on? there were even articles titled the burning sun scandal case that everyone except hung lee knows about he also stated that this would be a good time for him to enlist in the army and serve his duty as a good korean citizen and everyone got riled up for that because in korea men have to serve two years mandatory enlistment they're like the army is not a place for you to escape your reality so even with all of this the consequences just weren't that great i mean okay maybe that's a strange word to use it wasn't even comparable i guess would be a better way to phrase it right some of the more notable sentences included jj y idol sentenced to five years in prison uh choi jong hyun idol sentenced to two and a half years in prison brother of girls generation yuri sentenced to four years in prison meanwhile seong lee enlisted in the army and he was able to have a military trial.

1:40:42Wow. He had nine charges ranging from sex work, violent sexual crimes, and then breaking food sanitation laws, occupational embezzlement, things like that. He was found guilty of all nine charges, sentenced to three years in prison. He would have to file to be a sex offender and he was fined almost$855 ,000. He appealed. He was given one and a half years in prison instead of three. Here's a convenient loophole that's going to piss you off. In Korea, if you go to prison for less than one and a half years, you can serve quietly, meaning it's not going to be on your record when you get out. Sing Lee was sentenced to exactly one and a half years.

1:41:19So technically, he missed the cutoff and it would be on his record. Somehow, he manages to get out two days early, meaning that it would be expunged from his record. Oh, and he's spotted clubbing and cheating on women in Bali since then. It's on the record now. We're not going to forget about that. and so he has fans yeah there are some people that comment things like he's still young i hope that he can overcome the mistakes of the past and lives an amazing life isn't the rest of his life too long for him to just crumble like this he paid the price of his sins through the law already let's all give him a chance i will say most of the comments are pretty logical and they read every country needs harsher punishments for rape and sexual assault he suffers two years in prison his victims suffer a lifetime.

1:42:05Two years isn't enough if you ask me. Anyways, if the system doesn't give them what they deserve, society should. Regardless, I think we can all agree that many of the perpetrators got off with much less time than expected. Even corrupt police officers who were exposed of being on the whole thing, they were just either dismissed from their positions and those were just the lower ranking ones. The high ranking officials that were involved, they weren't even dismissed. Nothing happened to them. There wasn't even some sort of PR statement of like we're going to reorganize the police force and make countermeasures set in place against bribery and corruption.

1:42:39Nothing. Nothing. Yeah. Yeah. And all of the VIP clients, they essentially got away with it for SA. And somehow even Kim, remember the whistleblower who broke three ribs and got punched in the face? He started the Blue House petition. Well, he gets arrested too for allegedly sexually abusing three men and harassing people inside the burning sun, which half the people argue kim is a wolf in sheep's clothing he did good on whistleblowing the burning sun but he was probably involved in some weird stuff too and a lot of others believe no it's just fishy like the allegations against him are just fishy at this point he was sentenced to a year in prison but he says that he will be appealing the decision so it seems like minus kim everyone else got off with a slap on the wrist with all things considered unbelievable the fact Like that the guy's roaming around living his best life.

1:43:32A lot of K-netizens think that it has to do with Korean society of victim blaming and shaming victims who come out for crimes like this. Remember the Itaewon case that we covered? We talked about how some horrible people didn't feel that bad for hundreds of victims who died because they said, well, why would they go out for a party for Halloween anyway? It's not a good place for young, respectable people. a lot of families of victims for itaewon wanted their names not to be made public because they were scared that their loved ones would be victim blamed and it was the similar case with burning sun the victims were scared to come forward because they would have been blamed of then why did you go to a club then yeah well that's just the risk you take as a woman at a club and because there weren't really that many victims that spoke forward at the court speaking directly on the case they got off way too easy i think the only way to come back that is to for societies to speak up more about to support in support of victims right like that's the only way for other people to realize you're so dumb by saying that yeah like we need to make it yeah you're dumb and gross keep talking about it to to lift up the victims yeah yeah and um another thing was it's just and really annoying in the justice system that you would think drugging victims to SA them makes the crime that much worse, right?

1:44:53Because now you're doing more things to their body, but it actually helps the perpetrators get away with it in the eyes of the justice system. Because you know what's justice, right? It's a way for perpetrators to say she's not credible because I drugged her, but that's not the point. And it's just insulting and infuriating at this point. In other case-related aftermath news, the hotel on top of Burning Sun was shut down in 2021. the building was sold to Hyundai Construction and they are now going to change it to be an apartment building the co-founder of YG, Mr. YG himself stepped down as CEO of YG Entertainment one of the big three entertainment agencies in South Korea because of this scandal it is stated that YG lost close to$100 million worth of investment money because of the Burning Sun case and recently Choi, one of the idols was released from prison as well and paparazzi found out which church he was attending with his mom.

1:45:45And they stopped him in the church parking lot to ask him for an interview. And in the footage, he literally, you can hear this man whining for his mom. He's like, mom, like a kid when you're seven and a stranger comes to the door to ask if you have time to talk about the Lord and Savior. And you're like, mom, that's what he sounds like. His mom walks up and starts clucking away like some crazy mother hen. She states he wants to live in faith now. What do you want, paparazzi? Why are you making a big deal out of nothing? Do you want to get punished by God? And again, this is to show you the family's character, not the character of people who attend church or are religious.

1:46:22A lot of Christian netizens were commenting like, these types of people use religion as a way to shield themselves from their own evil acts. Other netizens were just shocked by both family members' behavior. They wrote, calling your mom like that at that age is legendary. but the mom who pops up and coddles over her rapist son is even more legendary. And I will end you with this note. One chilling fact is you know how a lot of big K-pop groups have names for their fans? So Blackpink has Blinks, BTS fans are ARMY. Big Bang's fans were called VIPs. They made it to say that their fans are very important people to them.

1:47:00But Singly's VIPs were not his fans. They were his rapists. and I just hope with him being back in the news with these scandals Burning Sun is never forgotten because how do you get away with something like that? He shouldn't be able to have anyone foaming over him or never be able to make a comeback. He's just a vile criminal. So what are your thoughts on the Burning Sun? And let me know in the comments and please be safe i'll see you guys on sunday for the mini-sode bye