Seungri's Instagram account removed following guilty court verdict

Seungri [YONHAP]

The Instagram account of former Big Bang member Seungri has been removed.

As of Monday afternoon, his account username seungriseyo no longer appears in Instagram’s search results.

The move comes after the Supreme Court on May 26 upheld an 18-month prison sentence for Seungri, whose real name is Lee Seung-hyun. He was found guilty of offering women for sex to potential investors, gambling overseas and embezzling money from his nightclub. In total, he has been found guilty of nine charges surrounding the Burning Sun scandal, an infamous sex, drugs and police protection scandal surrounding Lee’s nightclub of the same name which shocked the K-pop industry in 2019.

Instagram bans convicted sex offenders from having accounts. Notably, celebrities Ko Young-wook, Jung Joon-young and Choi Jong-hoon also had their accounts removed after being convicted of sex crimes.

Following the May 26 ruling, Instagram first turned Seungri’s posts private, then removed the account altogether some time on Monday.

Seungri’s account had over 8 million followers before the deactivation.

BY HALEY YANG [yang.hyunjoo@joongang.co.kr]