Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
An unidentified 29-year-old entertainment agency CEO has been arrested by police and charged with sexually assaulting trainees, as well as theft.
It’s been revealed on February 28 that the Seoul Gangnam Police gave Mr. Kim a warrant for arrest due to his prior stated crimes involving about 30 female trainees.
Mr. Kim recruited singer trainees whose ages were between 15 and 25 via Internet advertisement from January 2010 to September 2012. He would tell them that “they need to lose weight for improved abdominal breathing” and used that as an excuse to touch them in various places.
He collected roughly $3,000 to $10,000 from each trainee as a security deposit and the total estimates to about $220,000. Mr. Kim is under suspicion for demanding the security deposit by convincing the trainees that he will return the money later on and even injured them with wooden swords.
The police reported that the current CEO had experience managing a singer 5 years ago at “S” Entertainment and also acted as the face of “D” Entertainment for a year. Even though the trainees had no talent and a slim chance to debut, he passed them at auditions and promised them he will “have them debut within six months.”
Guessing his crimes will be revealed one day, he previously changed his name and moved his office several times between various cities like Youngdeungpo, Gangnam, Mapo and Bucheon.
“Many similar cases are occurring recently,” stated a police officer. “We’re planning to set a large crackdown in the district region of Gangnam, which is the home of many entertainment agencies.”
He would also routinely ask his female trainees like Park (16) that he needed to check whether they had stomach fat or not and sexually harass them whenever he wanted to.
Last January, Seo (19) had asked for a refund on her security deposit, causing him to lash out at her by striking her with a wooden stick along with verbal profanity, leading her to be hospitalized for three weeks.
A in actuality had no power to debut any of his trainees as singers and never had any intentions of returning their deposits.
Sad to say, but in the rash of rape/sexual assault cases recently, the more significant news here is the police statement, where it’s admitted that there’s a trend and that a crackdown is necessary.
Of course these things are horrible, but it’s clear that it has become systematic now and that it’s not just individual shitty companies.
Why has this happened all of a sudden? Well, I’d argue it’s always been around in some fashion, but the growth of the industry has led to prime opportunities for criminals. As with any entertainment industry, the balance of power is skewed greatly. The supply of wannabees is overwhelming, but the demand for their talents is limited. That inequality inevitably creates desperation, and, especially considering their ages, situations where they’re ripe to be manipulated and taken advantage of.
Basically, a lot of these random upstarts aren’t really music companies anymore, they’re crime rings with the front of being entertainment agencies.
It will be interesting to see what police ACTUALLY do about it versus what they SAY they’ll do, because the writing has been on the wall regarding this type of activity for a while now, especially regarding minors, but not much has been changed thus far.
Those poor trainees. Where the hell are their parents?
I hope they get some sort of compensation for this shit. What a creep
I would bet that in a lot of cases the parents are the ones who feed them to the wolves.
:.:.:::…::::::..::.::…:
Do you do this on other sites, too?
LOL
Sad stuff, but it will continue to happen in certain degrees since it brings business, and authorities/other business men are bribed using sexual favours from trainees in return for a free pass or money to bail themselves out, and continue their exploitation
Damn. It’s like pervert home delivery.
“Basically, these aren’t really music companies anymore, they are crime rings with the front of being entertainment agencies.”
Dead-on, especially considering that other story that broke where the CEO of one company was beaten up by the manager of his own girl group who had teamed up with literal mob guys.
Are the “Big 3″ companies going to be included? I mean, let’s say something turns up in either YG, SM or JYP, what are the chances that the government will try to protect it’s cashcows?
Here is the thing. These “trainees” couldn’t make it into the big 3 so they get desperate and settle for whatever company will take them. So these small companies are just a scam. The big 3 run legitimate business.
Just because the business is ‘legitimate’ and trainees actually debut at some point, doesn’t mean there is no sexual harassment. I’m not saying that for sure there is something fishy going on, but we can’t just dismiss it, right?
….but there’s legit small companies too that aren’t ‘scams.’ Yeah, there are scam ones out there but to really conclude all the small ones are and only the big 3 is legit? Yeah, ok….. Everyone start out small at some point and for all we know, the big 3 may have dealings with gangs and do illegal stuff on the side.
More power means more opportunity to take advantage of it.
Kids would give a limb to be in those companies, so it’s not hard to imagine what else they might do.
Nope, there already is stuff going on in the big 3, they just get away with it.
The time JYP was cleared of having slave contracts, he went on TV talking about how he would not have that kind of stuff, yet he was still having people sign 12 year contracts (a slave contract), how did that get overlooked without some sort of bribery?
Agree
I don’t think that the big 3 are any exception, perhaps it’s easier for them not to get caught or to get away with it by briberies or threats.
also it could be more common amongst them cause their labels’ success is granted and trainees will do anything just to debut.
Not necessarily on CEOs level, other smaller employees/scouts could be involved.
I hope the big 3 are included. They definitely should be. When there’s practices of ‘trainee sunbaes’ making sure promising idols don’t get too prideful, you can definitely see that being exploited.
You can see in this Hyorin/Jo Kwon article how Hyorin doesn’t want anything to do with Jo Kwon. http://www.allkpop.com/2013/03/2ams-jo-kwon-was-a-scary-sunbae-to-sistars-hyorin That particular example may be innocent, but you can easily imagine that sort of situation spiraling out of control to the point of exploitation and harrassment.
I won’t be surprised if some go as far as human trafficking, prostitution, etc. If they able to abuse their trainees like this, they probably make money off of it too.
It’s so easy to scam kids like this. Just say, yeah you’ll be a star, just pay a deposit of XXX money for expenses. Then they never get to debut because they aren’t good enough, so they pay more money. Then kids “have to” couch cast to get anywhere in the celebrity world. Or are molested and then the company uses that against kids to say they won’t debut if they don’t cooperate. It’s really the most corrupt system and it sucks that idol and celebrity life is glorified so much.
Honestly, if a prosecution and conviction happens for this guy, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if they sentence him with more time/money to serve for the deposit scams than the sexual harrassment =\
Guessing he pays them off for the sexual assault part.