page_title: Burning Sun scandal
section_title: Investigative reporting
hierarchical_section_title: Burning Sun scandal / Investigative reporting
caption_attribution_description: English: SBS VIP bus parked on Bukchon Hanok Village street.
context_page_description: The Burning Sun scandal, also known as Burning Sun gate, is a 2019 entertainment and sex scandal in Seoul, South Korea, which involved several celebrities, including Korean idols of popular K-pop groups, and police officials. It was the largest scandal to hit the K-pop industry. The allegations of sex crimes involved added to the country's "epidemic" of what is called molka, a Korean word for the online distribution of unconsented sex videos taken of women, and the scandal became fodder for political parties, who argued over how to handle it.
  It began on January 28, 2019, when MBC Newsdesk reported a November 2018 alleged assault of a male clubgoer at the Burning Sun, a prominent nightclub in Gangnam, by a staff member. The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency investigation soon turned to one concerning the club's alleged involvement in prostitution, drug trafficking and police corruption. Seungri of the band Big Bang, one of the club's directors, subsequently resigned from the entertainment industry on March 11, 2019, after being charged with sex bribery.
context_section_description: The SBS investigative reporter who examined the KakaoTalk chat messages sent by the whistleblower to the television station SBS funE was Kang Kyung-yoon. Her previous work included reporting on the corruption cases related to former President Park Geun-hye. When she started interviewing some of the victims of the videos, she found they did not know of their existence. She said, “Some of them begged, ‘Please save me. How do I live after this?’” She said they were ashamed and angry but feared "wearing a scarlet letter as a sex crime victim", and thus feared being identified. Kang said that the sex video investigation was seen by some people as a means to avert attention away from the larger corruption scandal with its multiple allegations, but she perceived it as a serious social issue that needed reporting on.
  At the end of March 2019, Seungri told the director of SBS's investigative program, Unanswered Questions, in a text message, that the lawyer whistleblower and journalist were responsible for all the criminal allegations against him, had not checked facts properly and had "ruined his career for their own personal gain". In June, the production team of Unanswered Questions (also called I Want to Know) received the Seoul City's Gender Equality Award Grand Prize, in part for their coverage of the scandal.
caption: SBS VIP bus, Bukchon Hanok Village, Seoul.
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