I had no idea that plant poaching was even a thing:
Dudleya plants that grow along the California coats are prized in Asia so have become a major target for smugglers, experts say.
The leader of an international plant poaching ring has pleaded guilty to digging up thousands of succulents from remote state parks in California to ship to Asia to sell for giant profits, federal prosecutors said.
Byungsu Kim, 46, of South Korea, was accused with two co-conspirators of flying to Los Angeles in 2018, and then driving to small state parks in northern California where they illegally dug up numerous Dudleya plants.
The plants are prized in Asia, but take years to grow in nurseries, so those growing in the wild along the California coast have become a major target for poachers, authorities say. Black market Dudleyas can sell for up to $1,000 each, wildlife experts say.
You can add this as another one of the Only in Korea stories. What a bizarre and horrible murder of this young child:
A woman of Philippine nationality has been detained for allegedly beating to death the three-year-old son of her acquaintance from the United States Forces in Korea (USFK).
The Pyeongtaek Police said, Monday, that they had detained the 30-year-old suspect and are investigating the case.
According to the police, she and the USFK service member knew one another, and the latter had asked the woman to briefly mind his two sons ― seven and three years old.
She is accused of beating the younger boy to death in her room, provided by a bar where she was employed, at around 7:30 a.m., Sunday. The older child was not harmed.
The bar owner discovered the victim around 8 a.m. and reported it to the police.
The police then began to search for the suspect, but she had been taken into custody at a precinct station nearby as police had received reports of the woman roaming the streets naked.
You can read more at the link, but the woman when she was detained was not only naked, but incoherent. However, despite being incoherent supposedly confessed to the crime. If I had to guess I would say she was likely under the influence of some drug that probably influenced beating the 3-year old child to death. Some advice to all USFK service members, do not leave your kids at the bar to be watched by a Filipina juicy girl.
By the way, any bets what the father was doing while leaving his kids at the bar to be watched by the juicy girl?
This is a lot of meth that was interdicted in Busan:
South Korean prosecutors said Wednesday they have busted the nation’s largest-ever drug trafficking attempt with an arrest of a man in his 30s in the southern port city of Busan.
The Busan District Prosecutors Office said it has arrested and indicted a 34-year-old man on charges of smuggling over 400 kilograms of methamphetamine from Mexico.
The prosecution said the volume of methamphetamine seized from the suspect totaled 404.23 kg, the largest amount in the nation’s history of drug smuggling.
The seized drugs, which can be administered to 13.5 million people at the same time, is worth 1.3 trillion won ($1.12 billion) in terms of retail price.
I would be surprised if South Korea brings back the death penalty, but I have no sympathy for these two criminals if they do:
Banners are hung in Daejeon, Wednesday, to urge a court to hand down a death penalty for a man who killed his 20-month-old stepdaughter in June. Yonhap
A series of atrocious crimes of late are once again sparking debate over capital punishment.
South Korea is classified as “abolitionist in practice,” which means that the government retains the death penalty but has not actually executed a criminal in the past 10 years or longer. The last execution here took place Dec. 31, 1997, when 23 convicted of murder were hanged.
However, the issue has been brought to the fore again following the homicide of a 20-month-old toddler by her stepfather in June and the murder of two women last month by a sex offender who removed his electronic monitoring anklet while on parole.
The 29-year-old stepfather, identified as Yang, allegedly covered the baby girl with blankets because she would not stop crying and punched and stomped her to death. Furthermore, the parents hid the baby’s body in an ice box in their bathroom.
The crime has drawn public rage especially because Yang allegedly raped and sexually assaulted the toddler, according to autopsy results and the mother’s testimony.
In the other case, a man surnamed Kang, who had 14 previous convictions, was released from prison in May after serving 15 years for sexual assault, but last Friday and Sunday he killed two women, one of whom was murdered after he destroyed his monitoring anklet.
Police on Monday arrested two teenage brothers for allegedly stabbing their own grandmother to death.
According to Daegu Seobu Police, an 18-year-old boy stabbed his 77-year-old grandmother with a kitchen knife around 12:50 a.m. on Monday at their house in Daegu.
Stab wounds were found all over her body, including on her face, shoulder, arm and hip.
When the police asked for his motive, the boy said that he was angered by his grandmother’s nagging.
Its surprising this guy just turned himself in after committing these crimes:
A man, who had cut off his monitoring ankle bracelet and took off, turned himself in to police and said he killed two women, police said.
Songpa Police Station arrested the 56-year-old man, surnamed Kang, on Sunday for ripping off the electronic device and allegedly murdering two — one before he ran off and the other while he was on the run.
The man turned himself over to police at around 8 a.m. Sunday, reportedly saying he feared being arrested soon for his crimes. Police had been chasing him since Friday, when he ran away.
The police found the victims’ bodies at the man’s house and in his car. The two women, in their 40s and 50s, respectively, are said to have known the man.
This is a creative defense when this sailor probably just dozed off at the wheel after climbing up Mt. Fuji:
Lt. Ridge Hannemann Alkonis is a weapons officer aboard the destroyer USS Benfold at Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan, according to his LinkedIn profile.
A U.S. naval officer, facing 4 ½ years in a Japanese prison, described in court Tuesday how he lost consciousness driving home from Mount Fuji and caused an accident that ultimately claimed the lives of two people.
Lt. Ridge Hanneman Alkonis, 33, crashed his car into pedestrians and parked vehicles at a soba restaurant parking lot in Fujinomiya on May 29, according to an indictment. The city is about two hours from Yokosuka Naval Base, where Alkonis is assigned to the destroyer USS Benfold as a weapons officer.
Alkonis, who is charged with negligent driving resulting in death, said he lost consciousness due to acute mountain sickness, a common set of symptoms that occur with a trip to high altitude.
Killed in the crash was a woman, 85, who died that day, and a man, 54, who died in a hospital on June 11. A second woman, 53, suffered bruises to her knees and elbows.
What gets me is this guy just got three years probation and no jail time. Korea needs to give these people at least some jail time as a deterrent:
The unnamed American gym teacher working at a U.S. military base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, attempted to smuggle 120 oxycodone tablets and 315 morphine-based tablets by mail on Dec. 17, 2020, according to Incheon District Court records.
A 51-year-old gym teacher at a U.S. military base in South Korea was sentenced to three years of probation for attempting to smuggle morphine and oxycodone into the country, according to South Korean court filings earlier this month.
The unnamed American working at an unnamed U.S. military base in Pyeongtaek city, Gyeonggi Province, attempted to smuggle 120 oxycodone tablets and 315 morphine-based tablets by mail on Dec. 17, according to records at the Incheon District Court.
Pyeongtaek is home to two U.S. installations, Osan Air Base and Camp Humphreys, the latter of which is the largest U.S. military base overseas. Camp Humphreys is home to six K-12 schools while Osan Air Base has two.
The teacher requested the illicit substances from an unnamed source, who sent the tablets in a box containing chocolates, according to a sentencing document.
The problem with this bill is who defines what fake news is? The last ROK President was impeached in part with help from fake news which the people pushing this bill didn’t mind at the time:
Opposition People Power Party lawmakers attempt to block the approval of an amendment to the Press Arbitration Act by Culture Committee Chairman Do Jong-hwan on Thursday. [YONHAP]
Ruling Democratic Party (DP) members on a parliamentary committee Thursday approved a bill that would impose a five-fold increase in penalties on media outlets that make false or fraudulent news reports, ignoring protests from opposition lawmakers and media associations.
The proposal – an amendment to the existing Press Arbitration Act – was passed at a plenary session of the National Assembly’s Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee by its DP lawmakers and after a boycott by protesting opposition lawmakers.
It looks like another member of the ROK military is about to go down for sexual harassment:
This image depicts a sexual harassment case in the military.
A Navy court on Saturday issued an arrest warrant for a senior chief petty officer suspected of having sexually harassed a female subordinate who was found dead in an apparent suicide earlier this week.
The issuance of the arrest warrant for the officer, whose identity was withheld, came after a pre-trial detention hearing held at the Navy’s general military court in Pyeongtaek, 70 kilometers south of Seoul. The suspect was immediately imprisoned at a detention facility of the Navy 2nd Fleet.
The victim, known only as a female chief petty officer, was found dead at her residence in Pyeongtaek on Thursday after reporting days earlier that she had suffered sexual harassment from the suspect in May.
![Opposition People Power Party lawmakers attempt to block the approval of an amendment to the Press Arbitration Act by Culture Committee Chairman Do Jong-hwan on Thursday. [YONHAP]](https://i0.wp.com/koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2021/08/19/4403d723-8178-4a80-9db3-fd5191db71a6.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)
