Last year, we reported on Los Angeles golf teaching professional Dave Fink, who launched a movement called #FreeTheTee to raise awareness for a growing problem in the L.A. golf community—tee-time brokers.
Public golfers in the Los Angeles area found themselves struggling to land tee times at municipal courses like Balboa Golf Course, Hansen Dam and others, with reservations scooped up in seconds by shadowy “brokers” who then resold the times privstely for a $30 to $40 reservation fee on top of the greens fees. Fink discovered the tee times were being resold through a Korean messaging app KakaoTalk, and city officials took notice, requiring a $10 deposit with each tee-time reservation and updating its booking policies to prohibit bots in an effort to dissuade the brokers.
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The crackdown eventually led authorities to Se Youn “Steve” Kim and Hee Youn “Ted” Kim, a pair of identical 41-yeard-old Korean twins who worked as MRI technicians by day and moonlighted as the infamous tee-time brokers by night. On Thursday, the Kim brothers were arrested on a 10-count federal grand jury indictment charging them with intentionally failing to report to the IRS more than $1.1 million in income, including money they made from the golf tee-time brokering business.
According to the indictment, “The Kim brothers often directed their golf tee time clients to pay these reservation fees to their personal accounts, including Venmo and Zelle accounts, and then transferred those funds into their personal bank accounts.
In June 2022, Steve Kim incorporated Birdie Tour Inc., a Buena Park-based company, and served as its CEO and chief financial officer, while Ted Kim was its secretary. The brothers obtained an employer identification number from the IRS and opened a bank account in the business’s name.
In total, between 2021 and 2023, the Kim brothers earned nearly $700,000 from their tee time brokering business. Despite earning substantial income and owing taxes from this business, and from their job as MRI technicians, the brothers willfully failed to report a combined total of more than $1.1 million in income to the IRS for tax years 2022 and 2023.”
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With the funds from their illicit tee-time scheme, the Kims allegedly bought “a timeshare in Hawaii, luxury vehicles, and high-end retail purchases from brands such as Chanel, Cartier, Louis Vuitton, and Prada, among other things.”
If convicted, each count of tax evasion carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, with up to one year in prison for each count of willful failure to pay taxes. In addition to those charges, “Steve” Kim also faces a potential sentence of up to three years in federal prison for making and subscribing to a false tax document.
The case has yet to be tried, but Los Angelese golfers will be relieved their efforts led to an investigation and arrest. With tee times flowing again and the Kim brothers no longer able to exploit public golfers for profit, it’s proof, however small, that the wheels of justice do still turn in America.
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This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
