There’s a lot more to the glitz and glamor of Gangnam’s club scene. In our on-going series of exposing the truth behind the real story of the Burning Sun scandal, we explore the tight-knit collusion between club owners, police and the MDs. Marketing Directors or “MD”s are the white-glove concierges of the club world in Korea. They also have facilitated the trafficking of ordinary customers against their will through the usage of substances designed to render innocent women unconscious. Beware before you try to fight your way past that velvet rope.
While we’re waiting on the results of the petition for the SJM case and the announcement of how the arbitration with SBS will go, let’s really dig into this Burning Sun case to find evidence of how easily South Korea’s police system can bought off.
It for sure doesn’t make the Gangnam police look good in their quest to become equal partners with the prosecution. Actually, it should really make the prosecution look worse because the police are still trying to ‘catch up’ to the level of bribes taken by the prosecutors.
What Was Wrong with “Burning Sun”?
Burning Sun opened in February 2018 in Gangnam at the Le Meridien Hotel. It used to be the Ritz Carlton until September 2017. Seungri was a co-owner. Specifically, it’s located in Yeoksam-dong and it’s near Sinnonhyeon station. Yes, it’s an expensive area. But that whole street has got a weird, dark, gangster vibe.
Burning Sun promoted itself as a super exclusive and expensive club catering to the 1%. That is half true. The other half of the truth is the tragedy. Almost anyone, especially naive young girls who come up to Seoul for the weekend, who pays the $20 cover charge can get in. In fact, they need these ‘fodder’ girls for the 1% clientele to keep coming back. However, it turns out the club wasn’t doing too well. Without hot, normal girls in abundance, the 1% big spenders wouldn’t come. Gone were the days where you would pack the clubs with big DJ acts and music shows. The name of the game now was really about sexual conquest.
The MD or marketing directors got creative and came up with a system to keep the ecosystem alive. They would find girls to bring in for free and literally force free drinks on them to have a good time. If these girls stopped dancing at their booths or tables for a second, an MD would come over and scold them for ‘not having enough fun’.
The MD foreign export business model started around 3 years ago to attract big spending hallyu fans from overseas who’d be VIPs at the clubs and have all the drugs and sex in a ‘safer’ environment than China and restrictive Southeast Asian countries.
A lady named Lin Samo from Taiwan was a 20% owner and reportedly used the club to launder money. She was also a super YG fan woman. She bought the apartment next to G. Dragon just because. She was also was like one of the ‘fishermen’ to make claim of sexual harassment against the whistleblower. Cuz she’s loyal like that.
So sure these MDs can give you the hook up in the club if you flash the right amount of cash. If you keep the money flowing for long enough, you’ll build up a decent ‘relationship’ where they trust you. That’s when their protection rolls in. But find yourself unknown to them and on the other side when trouble pops up? They’ll feed you to the Gangnam sharks. Like our whistleblower whom we’ll get to in our next segment.
All he tried to do was save a girl from being raped. But in the process, he unknowingly rattled an underground money machine for the club and police. Instead, he got beat up by security and chained by officers to a bench like a dog. His mom also got assaulted by officers too.
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PETITION!
Let’s demand a scientific-based investigation and a full release of CCTV footage into the disappearance of Son Jung Min at the Han River.
SIGN THE PETITION (FOR KOREANS): https://petitions.assembly.go.kr/status/registered/C830BE9E54525352E054A0369F40E84E
SIGN THE PETITION (FOR NON-KOREANS):
https://www.change.org/sonjungmin
Originally published at https://www.theseoulite.com on September 3, 2021.
