Jung Kook’s Scary Stock Shakeup

The BTS member had millions stolen while he carried out his mandatory military service.

Author

Jeff Benjamin
March 24, 2025

A curious and, so-far, underreported story dropped in Korea on Monday, March 24, that BTS member Jung Kook had reportedly been a victim of a massive theft resulting in millions lost while carrying out his mandator military duties.

According to various reports, including MoneyControl, a hacker “opened an unauthorized account in Jung Kook’s name in January last year, right after he enlisted for service. He transferred Jung Kook’s 33,000 shares in HYBE to the new account and sold 500 shares to a third-party investor.”

The Korea Times says that the total value of the stolen stocks was 8.4 billion Korean won — or $5.7 million. Sheesh.

BTS’ agency, BIGHIT MUSIC, gave a statement on the matter saying they took immediate action, which they say included restoring the original value, which must have been a relief to JK and highlights the crazy huge amounts of money HYBE must be dealing with on the daily. Or maybe it’s chump change to everyone involved.

“As soon as the company and the artist became aware of the criminal activity, we took measures such as suspending payments to the account and restoring the original value to prevent substantial damage.

“Apart from legal measures, we have also taken steps to strengthen information security related to artists' personal and device information to prevent future incidents.”

-BIGHIT MUSIC statement (via The Korea Times)

Jung Kook also reportedly filed a lawsuit for the return of the 500 shares transferred externally last year, with the Seoul Western District Court ruling in favor of our golden maknae in February, ordering the third party to return the shares. At this time last month, HYBE’s shares were worth about 251,000 Korean won, meaning JK likely got back about 125.5 million KRW (about $85,400).

It’s still unclear why or how this story began making the rounds recently, but certain facets of the Jung Kook fandom demand deeper investigation into the matter.

HYBE shared that no further comments are being made beyond the initial statement.

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