Something Shady Going on at Camp Kwangsa-ri
This story in today’s Stars and Stripes is strange but really not surprising:
Local police are seeking a South Korean man who works for the U.S. military in connection with the discovery of about 12 tons of U.S. military shell casings and live ammunition in a commercial warehouse Monday.
Detective Im Il-soon of the South Yangju police station identified the suspect as a 47-year-old man named Kim who works for the 17th Ordnance Company, which operates from the Kwangsa-ri ammunition depot, south of Dongducheon.
Im said three other South Korean men, none of whom work for the U.S. military, are being held in connection with the case.
Camp Kwangsa-ri is located between Dongducheon and Uijongbu just off of Highway 3. The camp is mainly run by the ROK Army with a handful of civilian workers and even smaller contingent of US soldiers. All training ammunition is picked up and dropped off at this camp for 2ID. It appears the Mr. Kim they are looking for who I actually have had to interact with before at Kwangsa-ri to turn in ammo, if it is the same Mr. Kim, was trying to sell the shell casings as scrap metal but was negligent and let live rounds mix with the expended rounds when he handed over the brass to Mr. Shin. The Korean workers are extremely careful to seperate brass and live ammo at the facility so this slip up is equally strange:
The police detective said the three men in custody helped broker a deal between Kim and a man identified only as Shin, who paid about $30,000 for the casings and ammunition as scrap metal. Im said Shin was not arrested because police believe he didn’t know the merchandise was stolen when he purchased it.
The detective said some of Shin’s employees who had military experience became suspicious of the ammunition boxes and contacted the police.
Im said that as former soldiers, the employees said they knew that “if even one bullet was missing in their units, it would be a really huge problem for them.â€
Im said 5.56 mm, 7.62 mm and .50-caliber rounds and shell casings were found in the cases.
Since Mr. Shin turned over the ammunition to the police this leads me to believe he probably didn’t do anything illegal. However, if they did try to melt down the ammo it really could of turned into a dangerous situation for those involved. I just wonder how long Mr. Kim has been selling the old brass for $30,000 a pop? He has been there for quite a while. If Mr. Shin didn’t turn them in, Mr. Kim would have never gotten busted. It also makes me wonder how many other illegal activities such as this goes on in Korea without USFK knowing?
In Germany once (1979) I saw the invoice for the turn in of 50 cal brass residue for an entire mech infantry (M113) battalion's worth of live firing. The division had implemented a comprehensive program of mounted gunnery so there was a lot.
The residue value was annotated on the invoice. I was astonished, I think it was around $70,000 (or maybe it was DM, can't remember now; the taxi drivers were giving the troops one for one at times, depending on how low the official exchange rate fluctuated, so perhaps you could say that even in the pre-Euro days it could still be one for one).
So, there's big money in the salvage value, and it's not surprising that there is going to be enormous temptation for corruption.
Used to be in those days you hardly ever saw 50 cal blank being used. I don't think I ever saw it in Germany. But with the advent of the MILES equipment in the early 80's, 50 cal blank became a big item.
At IOBC field problems in the late 80's, on the fringes of the Benning training area, we weren't required to police the blank 50 cal brass. There was no fence dividing the civilian areas from the post out there; the post boundary was just a hard-top road with ready access to the tank trails (not sure what it's like there now).
The civilians just off post would hear the roar of the firing of the big 50 cal blanks, and as soon as we moved out they would be there with their pickup trucks to police it up.
Probably the live rounds discussed in the S&S story were only the damaged ones (from stoppages, got bent or dented while the stoppage was being cleared and so couldn't be fired).
If the ammo support detail at the range isn't rigourous in separating these from the expended residue, by the time the big loads reach the depot turn-in point the job of such separation is enormous. As you mentioned, the expended residue evidently gets melted (not reloaded the way civilian shooters do with their brass); so, even one live round mixed in is a big hazard.
The German workers at the turn-in were notoriously obnoxious about this. But if Mr. Kim got slack in checking, or took under-the-table bribes to let the GI battalion ammo turn-in details "slide" on such separation, it's no wonder that live ammo was found mixed in with the residue.
But probably such live ammo was merely these damaged rounds which nobody had done the hard work to separate, not live ammo deliberately mixed in to increase the value of the brass. I suppose the poor workers at the melting foundry (in ROK? or maybe China or even DPRK?) would have had to be the ones to finally make the separation, since it would have been their lives on the line if live rounds exploded while melting.
All of these small camps where the Korean employees outnumber the Armericans have shady stuff going on; Camp Market and Camp Falling Water are two other examples I can think of off the top of my head. I'm glad we're closing down these small camps which have been havens for black marketing and misappropriation.
[…] remember handling ammunition issues, but the biggest story to ever come out of this camp was when a corruption scandal was uncovered on the camp in 2005 involving a Korean worker named Mr. Kim who was stealing expended ammunistion […]
I used to work in Camp Kwangsari from '98-'99. I think I know exactly who Mr. Kim is. I was good friends with a Mr. Kim and a Mr. Woo. I wonder if this is the same guy. I remember Mr. Song and Mr. Cha worked there too. We all used to hang out sometimes in Uijongbu. I never would have thought.
I interacted with Mr. Song more then anybody else every time I was stationed in 2ID and he was a good dude. Mr. Kim on the other hand I didn't care for too much and wasn't surprised to see this happen.
They were all great guys.
Mr. Kim and Mr. Woo were always wanting to go out and drink. These guys were pretty cool with me. I never stopped to think that they were spending lots of money. I remember Mr. Woo playing the slot machines all day. They must have been loaded with money!
So did they find these guys?