The police raided the headquarters of BBQ and investigated allegations that Yoon Hong-geun, chairman of Genesis BBQ, embezzled the company money for his son's studying abroad.
The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said on Dec. 18 that it conducted a search and seizure on offices of the Genesis BBQ headquarters in Songpa-gu, Seoul.
Police recently booked Chairman Yoon on suspicion of embezzlement. Suspicions have arisen that Chairman Yoon covered his son's study abroad in the U.S. with BBQ's local corporate fund and registered his son as a full-time director of the U.S. Corp. to receive wages.
KBS reported on Nov. 15 that Chairman Yoon embezzled more than 1 billion won from the company for eight years for his son's study in the U.S.
The report was revealed by the informant who served as the financial strategy team leader and the chief financial officer of BBQ U.S. Corp. from 2012 to October 2016.
"It was a malicious and false report from a former CFO of the U.S. Corp. who misused company funds," said BBQ on the KBS report. "This is the first case in history that KBS ignored a court decision and the media used its superior status to take another form of abuse," it said.
Judging that the amount of embezzlement reaches hundreds of millions of won, the police are focusing on obtaining accounting documents and related accounts.
Meanwhile, BBQ currently operates more than 300 stores in 57 countries around the world.
