Dude, GMMTV's gonna get their artists arrested overseas if they keep this stuff up. Allegedly.
Okay, so, piecing pieces together:
It seems that GMMTV has been sending their artists to work in China on tourist visas. And are thus not paying taxes on what their artists make while in China. This is what we in the business of words would call "stupid" and "illegal as fuck."
China was presumably looking away from this until earlier this month when a similarly illegally Chinese production in Thailand was raided.
Police found Chinese crew members, including men and women, and a Thai interpreter, filming at the location. The officers said the group failed to produce any legal filming permits and had no government officials supervising the production as required by law.
The arresting team also found that the Chinese nationals had entered Thailand as tourists and did not possess work permits.
- Bangkok Post
Then, this past weekend, Gun Atthaphan's fansign in Hangzhou was apparently interrupted and canceled by the police showing up.
So it seems, as my friend put it, there was a kind of, "I scratch your back, you scratch mine," pact between them that Thailand broke, so now China's retaliating by…looking.
The first thing I thought of was the sasaeng incident with Pond earlier this month where a girl showed up after getting kicked out threatening to call the police on them, so the staff got Pond to give her a high five and a 1:1 photo.
Now, this is only speculation, but like…the assumption at the time is that she was threatening to have the police called because they sold a ticket to a minor and this was queer propaganda or whatever.
But GMMTV sends their BL artists over there for solo events, so it's not a BL event if Pond was alone.
So with all of this in mind, isn't it more likely that the staff were all terrified of getting arrested for working illegally in China on tourist visas, so they got Pond to give the girl what she wanted so it didn't spark a formal investigation?
And if they're doing it in China, what other countries are they trying this in?
Because they send a lot of them to the U.S., and that was already worrying me before there were rumors of GMMTV doing illegal shit in China.
So, hey, hi, hey, GMMTV. If this is true, please pay your taxes and apply for proper work visas and don't risk your staff and artists getting imprisoned in concentration camps in the United States, thank you.