YG Yang Hyun-suk Denies 'Illegal Import of Expensive Watches'... "Received Them Domestically"

Yang Hyun-suk (54), the general producer of YG Entertainment, who was indicted on charges of importing luxury watches worth hundreds of millions of won into the country without paying taxes, denied the charges in court.

Former CEO Yang Hyun-suk. Photo by Yonhap News

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Yang's defense attorney argued at the first trial of the case involving violation of the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes (Customs) held on the 15th at the Seoul Western District Court Criminal Division 11 (Presiding Judge Bae Seong-jung), stating, "The watches were received by the defendant domestically and were never received in Singapore."

The attorney further claimed that Yang was asked by the company for promotional purposes, wore the watches overseas, returned them, and then received the watches again as sponsorship domestically, which he wore.

Yang was sent to trial in September this year on charges of receiving two Swiss luxury watches worth a total of 241.27 million won from a company in Singapore in September 2014, importing them into the country without declaring them to customs. The company was caught by Busan Customs in 2017 for bringing multiple watches into the country without customs clearance procedures.

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