Yang Hyun-suk, the founder and former head of YG Entertainment, was questioned by police for nine hours over allegations of procuring prostitution, the police said Thursday. Prostitution is illegal in South Korea. According to the police, Yang was summoned to the investigation unit of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency at around 4 p.m. Wednesday and was questioned until 45 minutes past midnigh...

Civic groups are calling on Mayor Chung Heon-yool of Iksan, North Jeolla Province, to resign after making racist remarks about children from multicultural families. “Biologically and scientifically speaking, they say crossbreeds are stronger,” Chung was quoted as saying in a media report. “Multicultural children are cute, but they might cause a riot if they are not properly brought up.” Accordi...

A minor far-right party continued Wednesday to resist the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s clampdown on its illegal occupation of Gwanghwamun Square in downtown Seoul. On Tuesday morning, the city government forcibly removed tents set up by Our Republican Party -- formerly the Korean Patriots Party -- after repeated warnings were ignored, only to see them put up tents again at the square in the a...

Seungri, formerly of boy band Big Bang, has been referred to prosecutors in the latest development in the Burning Sun probe, police said Tuesday. Burning Sun, a now-closed club in Gangnam, Seoul, is alleged to have been host to a range of criminal activities, including sex crimes, drug dealing and prostitution. The singer and entrepreneur was heavily involved in the club’s management. Seungri h...

Police caught 153 people for drunk driving nationwide between midnight Monday and 8 a.m. Tuesday, when the toughened drunk driving law came into effect, according to the National Police Agency. Of the 153 drunk drivers, 57 had their licenses suspended and 93 had their licenses revoked. Three refused to have their blood-alcohol levels checked, police said. (Yonhap) The revised law stipulates a ...

Chung Tae-soo, a former chaebol chief at the center of a 1990s corruption scandal that shook the country, might be dead, according to prosecutors Tuesday. Chung founded and headed Hanbo Steel, Korea’s second-largest steelmaker, until the company went bankrupt in January 1997, some 5.7 trillion won ($5 billion) in debt, despite government-ordered bailout loans from banks. Hanbo’s fall set off a c...

A man, 33, was booked on suspicion of misusing other people’s personal information to obtain sleeping pills, Busan police said Monday. According to the Busan Seobu Police Station, the man obtained a total of 6,157 zolpidem pills over the past five years, starting in April 2014, having made 232 visits to 10 hospitals in Busan. Police say he received the prescriptions in his friends’ names and to...

A South African man, 40, was caught trying to smuggle marijuana at Jeju Airport, prosecutors said Monday. According to the Jeju District Prosecutors’ Office, the suspect was arrested June 2 after 20 kilograms of marijuana wrapped in plastic were found in his luggage during a customs inspection. He was sent to court on suspicions of violating the narcotics law. This is the largest amount of drug...

Police have questioned Psy regarding suspicions that Yang Hyun-suk, founder and former chief producer of YG Entertainment, procured prostitution for businesspeople. The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency’s investigation unit said during a press briefing Monday that it had questioned the singer for about nine hours, from 5 p.m. on June 16 to 2 a.m. the next day. Psy was called in as a witness in t...

JEJU CITY -- About a month has passed since the gruesome murder that rattled Jeju Island, a popular holiday destination for locals and outsiders alike. The key suspect and circumstantial evidence have been identified. But there is still no trace of a body, raising concerns over the prosecution’s ability to reach a conviction. Jeju District Prosecutors’ Office said Thursday that police are extend...

JEJU CITY -- Murder suspect Koh Yu-jeong was not a violent person, people who knew her say. Koh was arrested June 1 on suspicions of murdering her ex-husband, surnamed Kang, at a vacation home in a remote town on Jeju Island. The alleged murder happened on May 25 -- on the day she allowed him to meet his son for the first time since the two divorced in 2017. She took custody of their 4-year-o...

JEJU -- Koh Yu-jeong is suspected of killing her ex-husband, surnamed Kang, at a pension (lodging) on Jeju Island on May 25 and discarding his body parts in the sea three days later, as she was leaving on a ferry to a South Jeolla Province island. The victim’s family filed a missing person report on May 27 -- a day before his body had been discarded --, and many are now wondering what the police...

JEJU CITY -- A 36-year-old man was killed at a pension in Jeju Island. His body was dismembered and disposed of in the sea. Police suspect his ex-wife, Koh Yu-jeong, of the crimes. The man, identified only by his surname Kang, leaves behind a 6-year-old son, whom he had not seen since his divorce from Koh in 2017. Koh, who took custody, did not allow his visits until the very day he died. On Ma...

Yang Hyun-suk, quit as the head of YG Entertainment, the agency he founded 23 years ago, as allegations of police collusion grew Friday. In the latest development in a string of scandals swirling around the embattled label, a whistleblower filed a report against YG with the Anti-corruption and Civil Rights Commision Tuesday, which raised suspicions of the label’s colluding with the police to cov...

Doctors on trial for attempting to conceal the death of a newborn dropped by the medical team denied all charges in the first hearing Thursday. Prosecutors said the defendants – a gynecologist surnamed Moon, 52, and pediatrician surnamed Lee, 65, – face charges of deleting records after the infant died from the drop and issuing a faulty medical certificate. The defendants’ attorney denied both ...