Category: crime & punishment

Did you know Koreans can be charged with breaking a domestic law even if it was committed overseas?:

Police said Tuesday they are investigating two members of a popular K-pop boy band for their alleged involvement in illegal overseas gambling.

Two members of SUPERNOVA have been booked for allegedly playing baccarat, a type of gambling, one or two times in the Philippines from 2016 to 2018 with stakes up to 50 million won (US$42,297), according to the Incheon Metropolitan Police Agency.

They are also suspected of having participated in illegal online gambling in South Korea.

The boy band members, however, have claimed they did not go to the Philippines for the purpose of gambling and just happened to gamble by chance, according to the police.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The second son of Yoo Byung-eun, the owner of the company that ran the Chewol ferry that sunk 2014, has been captured by U.S. Marshals for extradition to South Korea. The law has finally caught up to him as well:

One of South Korea’s most notorious fugitives was arrested in the United States this week on​ embezzlement charges ​at home stemming from the 2014 sinking of a ferry that killed more than 300 people, many of them high school students.

Yoo Hyuk-kee, 48, was arrested Wednesday without incident at his home in Westchester County, New York, in response to an extradition request that South Korea submitted to the U.S., a Justice Department spokeswoman said.

Yoo’s arrest ends ​a prolonged mystery over the whereabouts of the man South Korean investigators consider to be a central figure in the scandal surrounding the ferry’s sinking, which traumatized the nation. Prosecutors have said that rampant embezzlement by the Yoo family helped create unsafe conditions and practices on the Sewol ferry.

Yoo, also​ known by his English name, Keith Yoo, is a son of Yoo Byung-eun, whose family controlled the Chonghaejin Marine Company, the operator of the Sewol. The overloaded ferry capsized off the southwestern tip of South Korea in April 2014​ in the country’s worst disaster in decades.

New York Times via a reader tip

You can read more at the link, but Yoo’s father committed suicide shortly after the sinking and his oldest brother has already completed two years in jail for fraud. If all of Yoo’s shady dealings are true, hopefully he will be spending a long time in jail as well.

It looks like the leader of the Shincheonji Church will be the fall guy for his church spreading coronavirus in Daegu:

The leader of a minor religious sect at the center of the early coronavirus outbreak in South Korea was arrested early Saturday for allegedly obstructing the government’s efforts to contain the spread of the pandemic.

A local court in Suwon, south of Seoul, issued an arrest warrant for Lee Man-hee, the founder of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus. 

Lee, 89, is suspected of submitting false documents to health authorities on the number of participants at the sect’s gatherings and where the gatherings took place in February, when the fringe religious sect became a hot spot of the virus spread in the early phase of the COVID-19 outbreak in the country.

He is also accused of embezzling 5.6 billion won (US$4.68 million) from church funds and holding unauthorized religious events from 2015-19.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It looks like the Moon administration is willing to just let this one go down the memory hole. Will anyone remember this a few weeks from now? Probably not:

New Zealand said Thursday it has expressed disappointment that South Korea’s government did not cooperate with a police investigation into allegations that one of its diplomats sexually assaulted a local embassy employee when he was stationed in Wellington.

The male employee has accused the Korean diplomat of groping parts of his body over three different occasions in 2017. The case has drawn fresh attention after New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern raised the issue in a phone call with President Moon Jae-in earlier this week.

“The New Zealand government has expressed its disappointment that the Korean government did not cooperate with earlier requests from New Zealand Police in respect of this case,” a spokesperson at New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in emailed comments to Yonhap News Agency. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Via a reader tip, the government leaker, Reality Winner is trying to get herself out of prison by using COVID as an excuse:

Reality Leigh Winner, a convicted leaker who recently contracted the novel coronavirus in federal prison, received further pushback from the U.S. government Friday in her bid to be released early.

The Department of Justice said in a court filing that Winner recently tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, but appears to be asymptomatic and should stay imprisoned.

In a supplemental brief entered in federal appeals court, the Justice Department said it stands by the claims it previously made against granting Winner’s request for compassionate release.

Washington Times

You can read more at the link, but she was sentenced to 63 months in prison for leaking classified information to the media and I hope she does every single month. She had the potential to lead a great life with her education and a good job and instead decided to blow it all with Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Remember the taxi driver that impeded an ambulance due to a minor accident where the patient ultimately later died at the hospital? Well he is now facing some serious charges:

A Seoul taxi driver who caused public outrage by blocking an ambulance transferring an emergency patient was formally arrested Friday.

The Seoul Eastern District Court granted an arrest warrant for the 31-year-old driver, citing the possibility that he may flee or destroy evidence. The court said his charges have been sufficiently explained. (……….)

The taxi driver, who was three weeks into the job, quit work two weeks after the accident. 

He was arrested on charges of assault and obstruction of business. Police are looking into whether it is possible for him to be charged with culpable homicide.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It seems the ruling Democratic Party in Korea is just hoping that the sexual misconduct allegations against Mayor Park Won-soon will just go away with his death:

On the funeral day of late Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon on Monday, the main opposition party launched what is likely to become an all-out campaign to press for a probe into allegations that the deceased sexually harassed his former secretary.

The pressure by the United Future Party (UFP) highlights deepening political division over the death of the late Seoul mayor.

Park was found dead at a mountain in Seoul after apparently taking his own life on Thursday. He was facing a criminal complaint on sexual harassment, filed by his former secretary.

With Park’s death, the police were to close the case against him in his absence, but opposition lawmakers are increasing calls to get to the bottom of the allegations raised against the three-term mayor who was a lawyer defending human rights and women’s rights. (……)

“I believe the DP, having been more proactive than anyone in the past ‘#MeToo’ wave, would doubtlessly join the efforts to find the truth,” he said, calling for a probe into the case.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but I wonder if this is the end of the #metoo movement in South Korea? The movement pretty much ended in the U.S. once the #metoo people went after Joe Biden. Could the same thing happen in South Korea?

Here is some more blowback from the group of Americans acting like idiots this past weekend in Busan:

The American consul in Busan was called in by city authorities Wednesday over the firework mayhem caused by a group of Americans, including soldiers, on the Fourth of July.  
   
The Busan Metropolitan Government said in a statement Thursday that Woo Kyoung-ha, the city’s ambassador for international relations, summoned U.S. Consul Aaron Tiffany on the order of Acting Busan Mayor Byeon Sung-wan to express “strong regret” about the incident last Saturday and ask the U.S. Consulate that it doesn’t happen again.  
   
“Many Americans, including U.S. soldiers stationed in Korea, caused public anxiety on July 4 by shooting firecrackers in Haeundae and roaming around the streets without wearing face masks,” Woo was quoted by the city government as telling the consul.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Nearly a year later it still seems surreal that the Korean authorities have caught the Hwaseong Serial Killer after all these decades:

Police on Thursday closed the country’s longest-standing cold case involving a series of brutal rapes and murders that began more than three decades ago.

Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency concluded in a briefing that Lee Chun-jae killed 14 women, most of them rape-murder cases, and raped nine others, wrapping up its one-year investigation into him and his killing and raping spree that terrorized the country in the 1980s and 90s. 

Lee was found responsible for all of the 10 killings of women aged 14 to 71 in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, from 1986-1991 in what is known as the worst serial murder case in the country’s modern history, the police said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This update on the Lee Jae-yong legal saga makes me wonder what was done behind the scenes by Samsung to influence this panel’s decision?:

Samsung Group heir apparent Lee Jae-yong was granted a respite Friday in a legal battle over his alleged role in a controversial merger and fraudulent accounting, as an independent panel of experts concluded that prosecutors should not indict him. 

However, Samsung is still cautious as Lee’s legal battle is not over.

After hours of discussion, the panel, made up of civil activists, legal experts and others, concurred that the investigation into Lee unwarranted, giving a breather to Samsung and its de facto leader.

“We respect the decision from the committee,” Lee’s lawyers said in a release. “We thank the committee for giving Lee and Samsung a chance to focus on their business activities and overcome the current crisis.”

Early this month, a few days ahead of a court ruling over his detention, Lee, vice chairman at Samsung Electronics Co., requested the panel review whether prosecutors’ investigation is fair, seeking public support for the high-stake legal battle.

The independent panel was introduced two years ago to enhance neutrality and fairness of prosecutors’ probes into cases that are of great public interest. In a nutshell, the panel was created to rein in prosecutors’ powers.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link. I have no idea if Lee is guilty of what he is accused of, but what I do know is that Korea is a rule by law nation instead of a rule of law nation. If powers that be want him guilty they can likely make it happen unless Lee gives them what they want.