A group that stole and sold flight information of famous celebrities, including the group BTS, has been handed over to the prosecution.
According to the music industry on the 22nd, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency’s Cyber Investigation Unit recently sent three people, including A, an employee of a foreign airline, to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office on charges of violating the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection, etc.
According to the police investigation, A illegally obtained flight information of famous celebrities and passed it on to a distributor. It is presumed that he received tens of millions of won in return.
The distributor sold the information through messenger open chat rooms and SNS direct messages.
During the investigation, the police reportedly obtained A’s illegal information acquisition process and financial transaction history, and also confirmed the profit-generating structure and accomplice relationship.
Many entertainment companies, including Hive, have been complaining that airline ticket information, which is private information of celebrities, is often leaked, causing great damage.
Celebrities’ extreme sasaeng fans bought flight information and attempted to make close contact by boarding the same plane or changing the in-flight meal order, committing stalking acts. Furthermore, it was reported that some sasaeng fans even canceled flight reservations or changed seat information using the information they found out in this way, causing disruption to the celebrities’ schedules.
In order to respond to the issue of flight information leaks, BTS’s agency HYBE formed a task force (TF) in 2023 and has been consistently filing complaints with investigative authorities. HYBE confirmed a number of SNS accounts that traded celebrities’ flight information online, obtained evidence that could identify the operators (salespeople), submitted it to the police, and filed a complaint.
Through this, the police were able to narrow down the scope of the investigation and successfully arrested Mr. A in February and two members of the group in March.
