What should have remained a serious but straightforward investigation into a customer data breach is rapidly veering off course. Coupang’s recent handling of its data leak has transformed a matter of corporate accountability into a broader controversy involving government authority, public trust and even Korea-U.S. relations. At the center of this unfortunate episode is Coupang’s own arrogance and its deeply inappropriate attempt to control the narrative while official investigations are still ongoing. On Thursday last week, Coupang announced that the actual damage from the breach was “minimal,” asserting that no customer data had been transmitted to third parties and that information from only about 3,000 accounts had been copied by a former employee. This unilateral declaration came while police and a joint public–private investigation team were actively examining the case. Coupang is not an independent arbiter in this matter; it is the very subject of the investigation. For a company in such a position to present its own conclusions as though they were authoritative findi