In a definitive breakthrough that has sent shockwaves through the entertainment industry,actor Kim Soo-hyunhas been cleared of long-standing grooming allegations.
An exhaustive forensic investigation by the Seoul Gangnam Police Station has confirmed that the explosive audio recording used to accuse the star of dating the late actress Kim Sae-ron while she was a minor was entirely fabricated using artificial intelligence.
The findings have prompted prosecutors to seek an immediate arrest warrant for Kim Se-ui, the head of the controversial YouTube channel HoverLab, effectively dismantling a multi-year smear campaign that heavily impacted theQueen of Tearsactor's career.
The controversy reached a boiling point last year when HoverLab played a highly damaging audio file during a live press conference. Following the actress's death by suicide in February last year, intense public scrutiny raised allegations that Kim Soo-hyun was partly responsible.
In the recording, a voice believed to be Kim Sae-ron claimed she had been romantically involved with Kim Soo-hyun since her middle school days. Because of this, Kim Soo-hyun held an emotional press conference denying the allegations.
However, in the new development of the investigation, official police documents have now exposed the recording as an outright digital forgery designed to intentionally mislead the public, as reported byThe Korean Times.
'The suspect held a press conference on May 7 last year and played an audio file of the deceased's voice, which was fake and made by AI. He then falsely claimed the deceased had been dating the accused since she was middle school and they had their first sexual encounter during her second year of middle school, during winter break,' the arrest warrant read.
'The suspect distributed false information with the intent to slander the victim, despite being well aware that actor Kim had never dated the deceased while she was a minor.'
Beyond the fake audio, the police investigation exposed a systematic manipulation of digital text records initially presented as historical proof of the relationship in March last year.
As reported byThe Straits Times, investigators concluded that the alleged KakaoTalk conversations released by the channel as evidence of a 2016 relationship between the two actors had been deliberately altered.
Source: International Business Times UK
