Seungri admits to knowing Monkey Museum club was operating illegally

With all the other stuff that’s going on, many seem to have forgotten that Seungri is also being investigated for stuff like tax evasion and issues involving business funding, and he was recently booked on charges related to violations during operation of a club Monkey Museum.

Seungri is being questioned for engaging in illegal operations of Monkey Museum, which was a club he established in 2016 in partnership with the former Yuri Holdings CEO Yoo In Suk. When the club first opened, it was registered as a general restaurant instead of an entertainment bar. According to Article 21 in the Enforcement Decree of Food Sanitation Law, a general restaurant business is described as a “business of cooking and selling food, where drinking accompanied with meals is allowed.” The document also describes an entertainment bar as a “business of cooking and selling mainly alcoholic beverages, where workers engaged in entertainment may be employed or entertainment facilities may be established, and customers may sing or dance.” It is suspected that the club was registered as a general restaurant instead of an entertainment bar in order for the business to have a lower tax rate.

This honestly seemed inevitable after texts leaked where Seungri mocks the Korean laws that govern this type of stuff.

Now Seungri has admitted to knowing that Monkey Museum was operating illegally, according to a KBS News report.

Seungri established the club in 2016 in partnership with former Yuri Holdings CEO Yoo In Suk. The club was first registered as a general restaurant instead of an entertainment bar when it opened. According to Article 21 in the Enforcement Decree of Food Sanitation Law, a “general restaurant” is a “business of cooking and selling food, where drinking accompanied with meals is allowed.” In comparison, an “entertainment bar” is “business of cooking and selling mainly alcoholic beverages, where workers engaged in entertainment may be employed or entertainment facilities may be established, and customers may sing or dance.”

So basically the scheme that the crew discussed in the chat, which is also what YG is also accused of doing in terms of exploiting technicalities in ordinance.

KBS reports that during questioning, Seungri stated that he was aware beforehand that registering the club as a “general restaurant” when it opened could become a legal issue. It has been reported that Seungri stated that when they were opening the club, they followed the example of other surrounding clubs that had registered as other types of businesses such as a “general restaurant” or “photography studio.” After this was discovered in a crackdown, it was corrected. The police say it appears that Seungri and Yoo In Suk conducted irregular business practices, such as installing a separate stage in Monkey Museum and making it so that people could dance. After reports from surrounding businesses around the time when the club opened in 2016, Seoul Gangnam Police Station booked the person in charge of business at Monkey Museum on charges of violation of the Food Sanitation Act. The club also had to pay a fine of 40 million won (approximately $35,420) for business violations.

I mean, yeah. Like I’ve maintained so far, they are more likely to get busted by authorities on things relating to money than anything else since the paper trail will probably be there. So at least this side of things will probably continue down this path.

Wonder what tipped people off?