Prosecutors Rejected HYBE Chairman Bang Si-hyuk's Arrest Warrant. Again.
The Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office rejected a police arrest warrant request for HYBE Chairman Bang Si-hyuk for the second time on May 7. The Financial and Securities Crime Joint Investigation Division said it sent the application back because police had not carried out the supplementary investigation prosecutors previously required. "After reviewing the arrest warrant," the office stated, "we rejected the application because the supplementary investigations we requested had not been carried out." Police had resubmitted the warrant request on May 6 - just six days after prosecutors returned the first application with the same instructions.
Bang faces charges of fraudulent trading under Korea's Capital Markets Act. Prosecutors allege that in 2019, he told existing investors that HYBE - then BigHit Entertainment - had no plans to go public, prompting them to sell their stakes to a private equity fund with alleged ties to HYBE executives. When the company listed on the Korea Exchange in October 2020, Bang is accused of selling a large block of shares and pocketing approximately 190 billion won - about $140 million - in illicit gains. Police believe Bang had signed a prior agreement with the fund guaranteeing him 30% of post-listing profits. Bang's legal team maintains the share transaction was made at the investors' request.
Police opened their investigation in December 2024 based on internally obtained intelligence, then raided the Korea Exchange and HYBE's Yongsan headquarters in mid-2025 and questioned Bang as a suspect five times between September and November. The investigation has now stretched 17 months without a resolution. Critics have pointed to what they call deliberate delays; police have made no additional comment on the latest rejection.
The timing sits uncomfortably alongside BTS's ongoing Arirang World Tour, which HYBE and its subsidiary BigHit Music are managing globally. Bang founded HYBE in 2005 and built it into the agency behind BTS. Whether and when police file a third warrant application - and whether prosecutors accept it - determines the next phase of one of the biggest corporate criminal cases in Korean entertainment history.
