Paik Jong-won's The Born Korea was cleared of the allegations once again.
On the 20th, industry sources said the Korea Customs Service's Seoul Customs special investigations division's special judicial police recently closed the case without indictment regarding allegations that Paik Jong-won and The Born Korea violated the Customs Act by partitioning the importation of cooking equipment.
The allegation surfaced on Paik Jong-won's YouTube channel in August last year. At the time, a Turkish-made cooking device appeared in a promotional video for the Yesan beer festival, and a netizen filed a complaint and accused them after Paik Jong-won remarked that the customs clearance process was complicated and asked to have the electric motor and electrical components removed.
However, The Born Korea said the equipment did not have motors or electrical installations when it was imported, and that separate installations were fitted and used domestically after importation. They said they were notified of the case being closed without indictment.
This is not the first time Paik Jong-won and The Born Korea have been cleared. Four Food Sanitation Act violation allegations raised last year—that industrial metal cooking tools were used at regional festivals or that juice was sprayed using pesticide sprayer tanks—were all closed with no charges.
In addition, allegations that some of The Born Korea's retail products used foreign ingredients but were labeled as domestically produced under the origin labeling law resulted in the staff member and the corporation being referred to prosecutors, but they were not indicted after authorities found no intent.
Allegations of origin labeling law violations involving an agricultural corporation established jointly by BTS member Jin and Paik Jong-won were also closed with no charges. <
[Photo] OSEN DB.
[OSEN]