Police Seize Phones of Former Starbucks CEO and Executives in 9-Hour Raid

[Anchor]

Police have conducted a raid lasting over nine hours on the headquarters of Starbucks over the controversial "Tank Day" event. Police have reportedly secured the mobile phones of the dismissed former CEO and other executives.

Reporter Park Ha-jeong has the details.

[Reporter]

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency's metropolitan investigation unit conducted a search and seizure operation at the Starbucks Korea headquarters in Yeoksam-dong, Seoul, yesterday (August 5).

This marks the first compulsory investigation 76 days after the launch of the probe.

Involving around 40 investigators, the raid concluded yesterday evening after nine and a half hours.

Police reportedly secured mobile phones and other items belonging to former Starbucks Korea CEO Song Jeong-hyun and executives who were in charge of planning the "Tank Day" promotional materials.

Ahead of May 18, Starbucks faced widespread public criticism after promotional posts for an event featured phrases such as "Tank Day" and "hitting the desk," which were condemned as a blatant mockery of the May 18 Democratization Movement.

[Chung Yong-jin / Shinsegae Group Chairman (May 26) : I will not offer any excuses. All responsibility for this incident rests with me. It is my fault.]

Merit recipients of the May 18 Democratization Movement and civic groups filed complaints and criminal accusations against Chairman Chung and others for violations of the Special Act on the May 18 Democratization Movement, as well as defamation and insult.

In the search and seizure warrant, police specified the allegation that Starbucks insulted figures such as democratic activist Park Jong-cheol and merit recipients of the May 18 Democratization Movement through the event.

Police reportedly uncovered deficiencies after reviewing the internal audit data of Starbucks Korea submitted earlier by Shinsegae Group.

At the time of announcing the internal audit results, Shinsegae Group revealed that three out of five employees on the event planning team—including an executive—refused to submit their mobile phones, which had fueled suspicions of a superficial audit.

Based on the materials secured through the raid and other efforts, police plan to verify whether the "Tank Day" event was planned with the intent to insult merit recipients of the May 18 Democratization Movement.

(Photo: Kang Si-woo | Video Editing: Park Ji-in | Design: Seo Seung-hyun)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.