Bang Si-hyuk, the billionaire music producer who built BTS into a global pop juggernaut, is set to be questioned by South Korean police this month over allegations of fraudulent stock dealings tied to HYBE’s blockbuster IPO.
Police officials confirmed that Bang will appear before investigators at Seoul’s Financial Crimes Investigation Unit on September 15. He is expected to arrive publicly at police headquarters, where he will likely face the press before entering—an image that could send shockwaves through Korea’s entertainment and financial industries alike.
At the heart of the case is a claim that Bang misled early investors back in 2019, telling venture capitalists and stakeholders that HYBE had no plans to go public. Authorities allege that while giving those assurances, he arranged for their shares to be sold to a private equity-backed shell company tied to him personally. Soon after, HYBE began moving forward with the IPO process—including applying for a mandatory audit—contradicting his earlier statements.
Prosecutors say Bang eventually pushed ahead with HYBE’s high-profile listing and reaped a windfall of about $146 million, including a cut of the profits made by the private equity fund. The company went public in 2020 in one of the largest K-pop–related IPOs in history, instantly making Bang one of South Korea’s wealthiest cultural figures.
The investigation has escalated in recent months. Police raided the Korea Exchange in June to obtain documents tied to HYBE’s IPO review and later searched HYBE’s Seoul headquarters in July. Meanwhile, South Korea’s financial watchdog, the Financial Supervisory Service, is running its own parallel probe, raising the stakes for Bang.
The allegations threaten to tarnish the image of a company credited with globalizing K-pop and turning BTS into a household name worldwide. They also raise broader questions about transparency in South Korea’s capital markets, where regulators have been cracking down on opaque insider deals.
In an email to HYBE staff last month, Bang acknowledged the controversy, writing that he was reflecting on “shortcomings or oversights during the growth process” and vowing to prevent his personal issues from becoming a burden on the company.
Whether Bang can defend himself against allegations of misleading investors will now play out under intense public scrutiny—both in Seoul’s courts and in the global spotlight that follows every move tied to BTS’s empire.
