Oh My Girl (Photo : Kpopchart.net)
It appears to be a case of he said, she said, as a female K-Pop group, Oh My Girl, claim being detained by US border guards at the Los Angeles Airport (LAX) on suspicions they were sex workers. The eight-member K-Pop group arrived in LAX on Wednesday for a photo shoot and performance.
However, customs agents sent them back to South Korea because members of Oh My Girl claimed the group allegedly lied on their visa application by stating tourists when they came to perform. The girls needed performer's visa, not tourist visa, reports New York Daily News.
When customs officials inspected their luggage, they found props and equipment used for performance. That's the time that members of the group admitted they came to the U.S. to perform.
But the group of eight, formed only in early 2015 and released a mini-album titled "Closer" in October, claimed that after seeing the contents of their luggage, customs agents concluded they are prostitutes, says a translated statement from their label. The statement says, "As young women, they were mistaken as 'working women' which has recently been a big issue in the U.S."
While the group claimed they were detained for 15 hours, the New York Daily News source says the 15 hours were just the long wait for the next Seoul-bound flight.
If the South Korean girls could not enter the U.S., it was the opposite for their counterparts from North Korea, the Moranbang Band whose all-female members were picked by leader Kim Jong Un.
Toledoblade reports that the band had arrived in China for three concerts in Beijing, beginning Saturday night. The by-invitation concerts were supposed to enrich the cultural ties between the two communist nations.
However, no reason was given for the cancellation except "communication issues at the working level," according to Xinhua News Agency. Members of the band hastily left Beijing on Saturday afternoon. Yang Moo-jin, a North Korea expert at the University of North Korean studies in Seoul, cites rumors of a past relationship between Kim and one member of 2,000-member Moranbang, which circulated in Chinese media, as the possible reason for the abrupt cancellation.
