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Seungri in court (archive image from 2019)
Photo: Ahn Young-Joon / dpa
Former K-pop star Seungri of boy band Big Bang has been sentenced to three years in prison for pimping, gambling and other crimes.
A military court in the South Korean city of Yongin found the 30-year-old singer guilty on all nine counts, said the Defense Ministry in Seoul.
In addition, 1.15 billion won (about 842,000 euros) are to be confiscated from his assets.
Seungri had to take up military service last year.
Founded as a five-piece boy band in 2006, Big Bang developed into one of the biggest acts in the South Korean pop music world.
Singer Seungri (real name: Lee Seung Hyun) withdrew from show business in 2019 because of being involved in a drug and sex trafficking scandal, leaving only four band members.
In the course of the investigation into the scandal, other K-pop performers were accused.
Seungri played in Las Vegas
Seungri was charged with paying prostitutes for potential foreign investors to get involved in his business.
He is also said to have embezzled money from a nightclub in Seoul that was run by a company in which the singer was involved.
He was also accused of gambling overseas in connection with illegal foreign exchange transactions.
He is said to have played regularly in casinos in the US city of Las Vegas.
The singer dismissed most of the allegations during the trial, according to the national news agency Yonhap.
The prosecution had requested a five-year prison sentence for him.
Bands such as Big Bang, BTS and Girls' Generation are associated with the K-Pop genre.
ptz / dpa / AFP