Update: SM And Girls' Generation's Taeyeon Respond To Reports Of Her Being A Victim Of Real Estate Fraud

Updated October 28 KST:

Girls’ Generation’s Taeyeon spoke up about the reports of her falling victim to a real estate scam and asked people to refrain from jumping to conclusions.

On October 28, she posted the following statement on her Instagram Stories:

I’ve lived away from my family since I was young, so my wish for the rest of my life was to find a home for my family that’s closer to the area where I work and live, and my dream was to create a spot just for my family. With consent from my family, my parents took a look at the place with their own eyes and made the decision with the same dream I have. I’m writing this because it appears that my objective is being painted in a way that’s different from what I intended. Please refrain from misunderstandings, guesses, and speculation. I was unilaterally informed about the damage, so I am waiting for the situation to play out for now. It upsets me to have to be speaking about these things, but it is to ask the people who are misunderstanding and viewing it unfavorably to refrain from jumping to any more conclusions.

She added on the side, “I’m not crazy enough to do speculative buying.” Speculation in real estate refers to investing in property with the expectation of its future increase in value.

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Original Article:

SM Entertainment has responded to reports stating that Girls’ Generation’s Taeyeon had been a victim of a real estate scam.

On October 28, YTN reported that a real estate investment company had deceived approximately 3,000 people into purchasing property using false information. The company tricked the victims into believing that the land they were selling was developable when in reality, it was being protected as a forest conservation area under the Forest Protection Act. The total damages suffered by the victims amounted to 250 billion won (approximately $214 million).

According to the report, a famous comedienne who started her career in KBS acted as their salesperson and actively recruited wealthy people to invest, while one of the victims was a famous girl group member, referred to as A.

The YTN report states that A purchased the land from a large real estate investment company in 2019. The company had bought the land for 400 million won (approximately $341,760) and sold it to A for 1.1 billion won (approximately $939,850) after only three months.

A former employee of the company said, “My co-worker from another department was an acquaintance of A’s father. To my knowledge, A’s father heard from that employee and purchased [the property] under A’s name.”

Following the report, another news outlet identified the girl group member A as Taeyeon and the comedienne working as the company’s salesperson as Ahn Soo Mi.

In response to the reports, a source from Taeyeon’s agency SM Entertainment commented, “It is difficult for us to confirm the information as it is related to our artist’s assets.”

Ahn Soo Mi stated in a call with OSEN that she was working as a freelancer in real estate and that she had never met Taeyeon or convinced wealthy people to do anything. She added that she will be taking legal action against the report.

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