South Korean Government To Investigate BTS Over Chart Manipulations: Report

The Ministry of Culture of South Korea will begin an inquiry to examine the ‘sajaegi’ accusations against BTS. Sajaegi is the term used to describe the practice of inflating album sales artificially by mass purchasing or other deceptive methods to raise rankings on charts. One of the biggest K-pop groups in the world getting accused of sajaegi has generated a lot of discussion and interest among fans and in the music industry.

BTS chart-rigging scandal

According to Korea JoongAng Daily, the South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism said has received a request to look into BTS’ agency HYBE's 2017 payment to the blackmailers after the company was blackmailed for engaging in chart-rigging activities. The article states that the Korea Creative Content Agency (Kocca), a state-run organization in charge of overseeing all popular cultural genres in Korea, will take up the matter. 

It will look into it and ask HYBE to respond. The culture ministry asked in a different petition to have BTS's Order of Cultural Merit cancelled in the event that the accusation turns out to be accurate. The ministry bestowed the honour to the septet in 2018. 

For the uninformed, four people, including one Mr. Lee, blackmailed HYBE (BIGHIT Entertainment) in 2017. They accused the label of doing sajaegi for BTS's 2015 album. Reports state that although HYBE originally paid off the blackmailers. Later Mr. Lee was sentenced to one year in prison for the crime and the other three court members were mandated to pay fines.

HYBE’s reaction to sajaegi allegations

The sajaegi accusations have put the septet under investigation for the last week. HYBE has responded by pledging to take decisive legal action against any BTS defamation that would endanger their reputation. The organization has pledged to keep a careful eye on internet forums and other resources in order to prevent further harm to the members' reputations.