Singer MC Mong (left) and One Hundred Label chairman Cha Ga-won. [Yonhap]
Singer MC Mong (left) and One Hundred Label chairman Cha Ga-won. [Yonhap]

The legal team of Cha Ga-won, chairman of Piarc Group and head of One Hundred, pushed back Tuesday after prosecutors sought an arrest warrant against him on fraud charges involving 30 billion won ($20.5 million).

Hyun Dong-yeop, an attorney representing Cha, said in response to the warrant request: "It seems prosecutors have deliberated carefully, but this case does not constitute fraud either factually or legally, and there is much room for dispute. We plan to demonstrate to the court that there are no grounds for detention." He added that they would "put an end to the police's excessive arrest warrant application and investigation by securing a rejection from the court."

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office sought the warrant against Cha on Tuesday on charges including aggravated fraud under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes.

Cha is accused of proposing a business project to Nomers Co. that would leverage the intellectual property of entertainers signed to his agency, signing a contract, and then failing to carry out the project despite receiving 24.2 billion won in advance payments. Police determined that Cha had already entered into a prior contract with another company that showed no sign of expiring soon, yet concealed this from Nomers while entering into a duplicate agreement — and was not prepared to fulfill the project in the first place.

Police applied for an arrest warrant against Cha three times before prosecutors agreed to seek one. Prosecutors returned the first two applications, asking police to strengthen the factual basis for the criminal charges. The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency Metropolitan Investigation Unit's financial crimes unit then conducted additional investigation and filed a third warrant application on Wednesday, July 22.

During the third application process, investigators carried out additional inquiries including account tracing and contract analysis. In the course of that work, they uncovered indications that Cha had launched the entertainment agency while already carrying substantial debt, and had subsequently used a contract-splitting scheme to cycle through his obligations.

Cha, who had previously worked in real estate, co-founded One Hundred with MC Mong in 2023 and entered the entertainment business. The agency expanded rapidly, signing well-known artists including EXO subunit Chen Baekhyun Xiumin, Lee Seung-gi and Lee Mu-jin, but has since faced a string of exclusive contract termination lawsuits from its artists over unpaid settlements. Allegations have also surfaced that company funds were used to finance overseas gambling trips by Cha and MC Mong. Cha and MC Mong were once reported to have been in a romantic relationship, and a message in which MC Mong himself wrote "I dated Ga-won" was made public. MC Mong has since left One Hundred.

In a live broadcast last May, MC Mong commented on the Nomers situation, saying: "Nomers' servers were unstable and the merchandise was cheap. But I don't understand why they're now trying to pin fraud on Cha Ga-won, and I don't understand why Cha Ga-won is just taking it."


paq@heraldcorp.com