Photo: Kevin Chang / Team Liquid
Life’s arrest is the second blow to the integrity of the StarCraft 2 scene in just a few months.
Seung Hyun “Life” Lee, one of the most decorated players in StarCraft 2 history, has been arrested on match-fixing charges, reports the Korean news outlet Kyunghyang Shinmun. The confirmation of the reason comes two days after the esteemed progamer was taken into custody and became the object of investigation by the Changwon prosecutor’s office on Friday, January 29.
This is not the first time StarCraft 2 players have been charged with throwing matches. In October, the same prosecutor’s office indicted Prime trio of Byeong Heon “YoDa” Choi, Jong Hyuk “BboongBboong” Choi and coach Wae Sik “Gerrard” Park for match-fixing a total of five games in 2015. According to the reports then, more than $30,000 were paid to BboongBboong and YoDa in total, while coach Park acted as the middle man between his players and various brokers. Aside from the three Prime members, nine other brokers, financial backers and gambling site recruiters were also indicted or arrested.
Information was scarce at the time of Life’s arrest, though KeSPA’s cooperation with the authorities led to the freezing of Life’s competitive rights until the resolution of his case. The prosecutors are still silent about when and what exactly was match-fixed and the investigation is still ongoing.
If Life is found guilty on the charges, this will be the biggest blow to the integrity of the StarCraft scene since the 2010 match-fixing scandal involving bonjwa Jae Yoon “Savior” Ma and ten other progamers. Life, who recently made the jump from KT Rolster to Afreeca Freecs, has won more than $470,000 in his career and is the highest earning StarCraft 2 player of all time behind Min Chul “MC” Jang. His shelf of accomplishments include back to back WCS gold finals with first place from the 2014 edition, as well as two GSL, two MLG and two IEM trophies as well as three DreamHack grand finals.
