Tag: crime

Below is an update from the murder of a woman at a driving range in Changwon.  It is amazing that they deliberately planned to murder this woman just to steal $3,575 from her:

A young couple who allegedly robbed and killed a 47-year-old woman at a golf driving range in Changwon, South Gyeongsang, on June 24 was arrested Monday from a motel hideout in Seoul. The victim drove an Audi, so the suspects thought she was rich, police said.

The apprehension of 31-year-old Shim Cheon-woo and his girlfriend, 36-year-old Kang Jeong-im, came nine days after the alleged murder and six days after a third suspect, Shim’s 29-year-old second cousin, was arrested while on the run.

The older Shim and Kang met in 2013 working as caddies at a golf course in South Gyeongsang and started dating. The younger Shim told police that his older cousin promised him riches if he helped in a murder plot.

The case goes back to June 24 at around 5 p.m., when the three suspects were casing a basement parking lot of a Changwon driving range in search of rich people to rob. The victim arrived in an Audi A8 sedan. The three suspects parked their Kia Sportage beside the Audi and awaited the driver’s return.

The victim returned to her car at 8:30 p.m. and the two Shims shoved her into the Sportage. Kang allegedly followed in the Audi, according to police. The victim was forced to tell them the pin code for her credit card. Kang and the younger Shim went to check whether the pin code was correct, while the older Shim drove the victim to an isolated, abandoned gas station in Goseong County, about 40 kilometers away. He killed her, according to testimony from the younger Shim, police said. An autopsy of the victim revealed she died of suffocation at around 10:30 p.m. that day.

The suspects abandoned the corpse under a bridge in Jinju, South Gyeongsang, and fled to Suncheon, South Jeolla. They withdrew 4.1 million won ($3,575) using the victim’s credit card on June 25, and went back to Suncheon to get haircuts at a salon to alter their appearances.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Here is a horrible murder story that happened down in Changwon:

Changwon Seobu police are hunting two people who allegedly abducted and killed a woman.

The suspects, Shim Cheon-woo, 31, and Kang Jeong-im, 36, allegedly targeted the woman, 47, who was leaving a golf practice facility in Uichang-gu, Changwon, in South Gyeongsang Province, about 8:30 p.m. on June 24. A man, identified as Shim, 29, also was involved, police said.

They said they caught Shim hiding under a car in an apartment parking lot in Haman, in the same province, about 1:30 a.m. Tuesday. They have sought an arrest warrant for him on a murder charge.

Police found the victim’s body in a bag under Jinsu Bridge in Jinju about 6 p.m. the same day. It was sent to the National Forensic Service.

Police have seized an SUV used in the crime. They put the suspects on a wanted list Wednesday, with a 5 million won ($4,390) bounty.

The crime’s motive remains unknown.  [Korea Times via Reddit Korea]

The article says the motive remains unknown, but according to the below Yonhap video the woman’s credit card was stolen and over $4,000 withdrawn.  This makes me wonder if these are a couple of druggies trying to get money for their next hit?

This is a horrible experience this Korean mother and daughter just went through:

Two women visiting from Korea were robbed and one was beaten unconscious in the parking lot of a Placentia hotel on Friday, June 16, authorities said.

Placentia police officers were dispatched to the Best Western motel, 118 E. Orangethorpe Ave., about 9:30 p.m. When officers arrived, they found a 55-year-old woman on the ground with signs of trauma and a 25-year-old woman unharmed. The women were a mother and daughter visiting from Korea, according to Sgt. Bryce Angel of the Placentia Police Department.

When the two women arrived at their hotel, a navy blue 4-door sedan parked next to their car. Two men got out of the car and one person stayed behind the wheel, Angel said. One man attempted to grab the mother’s purse, which she had slung over her shoulder. The man tried to violently rip the purse from her, but the woman put up a struggle.

As they wrestled over the purse, the other man pointed a handgun at the woman. The suspects pushed the older woman to the ground and were able to get the purse away from her, Angel said.

The suspects continued to punch and kick the victim, who was lying on the ground, until she lost consciousness. The daughter was not physically harmed, Angel said.  [OC Register]

You can read more at the link as well as watch video about this assault at this link.

Here is another case of people being caught smuggling gold into South Korea in their underwear:

Two Vietnamese flight attendants working for Asiana Airlines, Korea’s second largest carrier, have been detained after trying to smuggle 19 kilograms of gold into the country, the Korea Customs Service (KCS) said Thursday.

According to the KCS Incheon office, the attendants were concealing 1-kilogram-gold bars ― 10 on one and nine on the other ― in their underwear when they arrived at Incheon International Airport on June 5 from Vietnam.

The KCS said this was not their first smuggling attempt, saying it has confirmed that the two succeeded in smuggling 13 kilograms of gold into Korea on three occasions in April.

They will face charges of attempting to smuggle 32 kilograms of gold, worth about 1.5 billion won ($1.33 million), into the country.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but I wonder if the flight attendants were dressed like this?

https://www.rokdrop.net/2017/05/over-2000-kilograms-of-gold-caught-hidden-in-the-private-parts-of-51-koreans/

When I first read this article I was wondering if it was a Duffel Blog entry, but the person who leaked Top Secret information really is named Reality Winner:

The alleged leaker accused of feeding a classified report to an online news site has a colorful history on social media that lays bare her political leanings as an environmentalist who wanted to “resist” President Trump.

Reality Winner, 25, is a contractor with Pluribus International Corporation assigned to a federal facility in Georgia, where she allegedly leaked a classified intelligence report containing “Top Secret Level” information. The report, according to the Department of Justice, contained classified defense information from an intelligence community agency.

While the DOJ did not say which site published the information, the charges were announced just as The Intercept published details of a National Security Agency report on Russian hacking efforts during the 2016 presidential election.

According to the Justice Department, Winner admitted to printing a classified intelligence document despite not having a “need to know,” and with knowledge the report was classified. Winner further admitted removing the report from her office space and mailing it to the news outlet, according to the criminal complaint.  [Fox News]

You can read more at the link, but it appears she was motivated by politics because of her anti-Trump Facebook postings.  What is clear though is that she needs to receive the maximum sentence possible for leaking Top Secret information to the media because this leak is absolutely ridiculous.

What makes this even more pathetic is that this information was already known to the media.  CNN reported back in October 2016 that federal officials told them that Russia may have compromised the personal information of Florida, Illinois, and Arizona voters.  This leaked document is just the source for the information that federal officials already briefed the media.  So Reality Winner has likely thrown her life away for providing information the media already knows and did not change one vote during last year’s election.

The three Koreans killed in this murder were actually part of a scheme that defrauded South Koreans of hundreds of thousands of dollars:

Location where the three dead South Koreans were discovered in the Philippines.

A Seoul court on Friday sentenced a South Korean man who shot three compatriots to death in the Philippines last year to 30 years in prison.

The Seoul Central District Court convicted the man, identified only by his last name Kim, of murdering three Koreans — two men and one woman — who were found in a sugar cane field in Bacolor, some 70 kilometers northwest of Manila, on Oct. 11. All three had gunshot wounds to their heads.

He killed the victims following a proposal from another South Korean, surnamed Park, in return for money.

Kim was also convicted of abandoning the bodies and siphoning off 2.4 million won ($2,100) from the victims.

Prosecutors accused Kim of stealing another 720 million won from their account, but the court acquitted him of the charges, citing a lack of evidence.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

The obvious question with this incident is where were their parents at?  What an embarrassment:

Three teenage children of U.S. forces in South Korea have been arrested for assaulting Koreans, including a 50-something taxi driver, while drunk, police said Sunday.

One victim was reportedly assaulted because he did not know the location of a nearby nightclub, according to Mapo Police Station.

The alleged incident happened at 2 a.m. of May 23 near Sogang University in Mapo, northwestern Seoul.

According to police, the teenagers picked a fight with two adult Koreans after they bumped shoulders accidently. The teenagers were then involved in a fight with a Korean man near Hongik University at around 3 a.m. after he failed to answer their question about the nightclub. A taxi driver who tried to intervene was also assaulted.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but their parents should be held accountable as well for allowing their kids to be wandering around Seoul at 2AM in the morning.

Over at the Korea Herald they have an article published that details some of South Korea’s most prolific serial killers.  Most I have heard of before, but there was actually a group of serial killers called the Jijon Clique that murdered five people and ate them in 1993 that I had not heard of before:

There was a crime group that systematically murdered people as well.

Kim Ki-hwan, 25 at the time, organized the group dubbed the “Jijon clique” in July, 1993. All in their 20s, they had hated the rich and decided to “act out.”

Their first target was a 23-year-old factory worker, who they raped and killed in 1994. They also set up a makeshift jail and incineration facility in a basement of the leader’s house in South Jeolla Province.

While it all started from their frustration against the rich and the economic polarization in society, their targeted victims were not always wealthy. One of the five people they killed was also one of their members, Song Bong-eun, who tried to secede from the group.

In September, 1994, they kidnapped four people and killed three of them in the most brutal ways. One victim, after being tortured, escaped to report the gang to the police. The six members were finally caught and were executed in November the same year.

In their testimony, one of the members revealed that they had practiced cannibalism, because they “gave up on being human.”  [Korea Herald]

You can read more about South Korea’s past serial killers at the link.  However, one serial killer not mentioned in the article that may also be its most famous is the Hwaseong Serial Killer that has never been caught.  The killings were featured in one of Korea’s most well known crime movies, “Memories of Murder ” which I highly recommend watching for those who haven’t seen it already.

It seems like amateur hour over at the NCIS over at Okinawa.  First of all their sting operation seems quite shady using pictures of a 22-year old woman posing as a 15-year old and then hiding evidence from the defense afterwards:

Bilecki had made the question of the missing video a key part of his client’s defense prior to it being found. Introducing the video mid-trial violated discovery rules, Bilecki said.

Kimball had been on temporary duty at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, when he met an undercover Navy agent online, who claimed to be 15, Bilecki said.

The two exchanged text messages for about 20 days, Bilecki said. The agent sent at least four videos and 18 photos to Kimball. However, Bilecki said that several photos showed the agent as a 22-year-old, which could have sent his client a mixed message.

Kimball arranged to meet the agent at the Olympic Mall on base and was arrested upon arrival.

The arrest was one of dozens in a multiyear NCIS operation aimed at catching personnel interested in sex with minors on Okinawa, where about half of all U.S. forces in Japan are based. Bilecki’s Hawaii-based firm has represented multiple defendants in such cases.

“I don’t have an issue if law enforcement wants to run an undercover operation where they are targeting servicemembers seeking underage sex online,” Bilecki, a former military attorney, said Friday. “The issue our law firm has is when they use … forms of inducement and entrapment to arrest otherwise innocent individuals who are not looking to meet minors.”  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

It seems the judge found middle ground here because the officer was convicted of the crime of sodomy, but he did not sentence him to jail since it was suspended for one year.  So basically the officer has to stay out of trouble for one year to avoid going to jail.  What I am wondering and the article does not clarify was if he was having a relationship with one of his subordinates?  Whether you are gay or straight this is something that should not be going on in the military:

South Korea’s military court sentenced an Army captain to six months in prison, suspended for a year, Wednesday on charges of having sex with a fellow male soldier, a civic group said.

The captain, whose identity was withheld, was convicted for violating the Military Criminal Act, according to the Center for Military Human Rights Korea. Under the law, a soldier who commits “sodomy” or “other disgraceful conduct” can face up to two years in prison.

“It is a bizarre clause that only has a perpetrator, without a victim,” the group said in a press release, adding the captain had sexual intercourse at a private place under consent.

The defendant, however, will not appeal the ruling, according to an official at the group.

“The captain was fulfilling his military duty and was originally scheduled to be discharged in April,” the official said. “If he appeals the ruling he will have to stay in the military without knowing when the legal battle will be finished.”

The captain collapsed after the ruling was delivered and was transferred to a nearby hospital but is known to have left the hospital in stable condition, according to the official.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.