HYBE came under fire for conducting what fans call inappropriate body searches on fans during an offline event for its rookie boy band &TEAM on Saturday.

A fan sign event, where fans attend to get their albums signed by the stars in person, was held Saturday at the CTS Art Hall in southern Seoul to celebrate the release of “First Howling: We,” &TEAM’s second EP that dropped in June.

Shortly after &TEAM’s fan sign event ended, multiple fans who attended the event alleged that the security staff conducted an “underwear search” to search for unauthorized sound and video recording devices, according to social media posts.

It is customary for agencies to prohibit fans from recording voices or videos of offline performances due to security reasons, but the search was too intimate, the fans said.

Fans have also said that they were told to move into a separate space where they were told to “raise their clothes” to search for prohibited items hidden under their clothes.

“I’ve never had cases of getting my bras searched at a fan sign event,” a fan said on Twitter Saturday. The tweet attracted more than 9.5 million views and 12,000 retweets and quotes since.

Many others who made similar accusations followed the post.

An apology came on Sunday from &TEAM’s part, but from a subsidiary of HYBE focusing on album and merchandise sales instead of the actual agency.

Fans have expressed dismay at the apology, saying that it is vague and blames fans for conducting the body searches in the first place.

“We would like to apologize to fans who have attended the event, regarding security body searches conducted by a female security agent at &TEAM offline fan sign event on July 8,” Weverse Shop, the organizers of the fan sign event, said in a statement on Sunday.

“There were multiple cases of hiding prohibited electronic devices under clothes. Therefore, a female security staff conducted a security body search, causing displeasure among the attendees of the fan sign event,” it added

“Even when this was done for security reasons, we know that it cannot be the reason for making fans feel uncomfortable. We apologize that such actions have taken place.”

&TEAM is HYBE’s first Japanese boy band that debuted in September last year, consisting of one Korean member, EJ, one Taiwanese member, Nicholas, and seven Japanese members: K, Fuma, Yuma, Jo, Harua, Taki and Maki. Maki holds both Japanese and German citizenship.

K, Nicholas, EJ and Taki competed on Mnet and HYBE’s K-pop competition show “I-Land” (2020), while the other members are from the Japanese and Korean competition show “&Audition – The Howling” (2022). The boy band dropped its second EP, “First Howling: WE,” on June 14.

To find out more about &TEAM, visit Celeb Confirmed

BY CHO YONG-JUN [cho.yongjun1@joongang.co.kr]