Tag: crime

I have been saying this for quite some time now, expect every petty USFK crime to now receive attention from the Korean media:

Two United States Forces Korea soldiers were caught stealing clothes from a shop in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province, police said Saturday.

They entered the shop at 11 p.m. Friday, and fled with a jacket priced at 60,000 won ($54), according to Gwangju Dongbu Police Station. Officers, called by the shop’s manager, traced the two and apprehended them.

The two suspects, from an air base in Gyeonggi Province, remained tight-lipped, refusing to answer questions from investigators.

Police are reviewing CCTV footage to help them in their investigation.  [Korea Times]

This is not something that should make national news, but like we saw during the 2000-2008 timeframe every USFK petty crime made the news to help create the perception of out of control GI crime.  It was common for Koreans to think USFK personnel could commit crimes and fly away back to the US.  This caused protests and demands for SOFA revisions.

I long ago showed the problems with the anti-US activists complaints about the US-ROK SOFA and I am still awaiting for one person to point out an example of a crime committed by a GI off duty and the USFK refused to hand him over?  The anti-US activists keep complaining about GI’s getting away with crimes and can’t point out a specific example of when this happened.

Visitors look at a model of a human skeleton to learn more about forensic anthropology during the 2018 International Crime Scene Investigation Conference in Seoul on Nov. 6, 2018. (Yonhap)

This is a lot of people to get rolled up all at once for drug crimes:

Two sailors are already heading to court-martial for using, possessing and distributing the hallucinogenic drug, while three are waiting to see whether they will be charged as well, according to 7th Fleet spokesman Lt. Joe Keiley.

Another 10 sailors with the Japan-based ship were administratively disciplined on LSD-related charges, Keiley said.

A 15th sailor was also disciplined, but that person was not assigned to the carrier’s reactor department.

A South Korean millionaire who founded & runs file-sharing sites notorious for sharing revenge porn/spycam porn videos is under probe for beating & abusing workers by forcing them to eat a handful of raw garlic, dye their hair red/green & kill live chickens with crossbows. https://t.co/icEI5raOxG

— Hawon Jung (@allyjung) November 1, 2018

If the autopsy shows the girl died from alcohol poisoning I would hope these two are charged with at least manslaughter:

An arrest warrant is being sought against two high schoolers on charges of allegedly raping a high school girl, Saturday, the police said. The girl was found dead afterwards.

According to the Yeonggwang Police in South Jeolla Province, two 17 year-old students surnamed Jung and Baek raped the victim, 16, in a motel room in Yeonggwang county on Thursday.

It was between 2:10 a.m and 4:15 a.m. when the two left the crime scene. The victim was later found dead by the owner of the motel who came in to clean up the room, around 4 p.m. that day.

According to the police, Jung and Baek had planned to commit sexual assault after they got the girl drunk in a “drinking game.” They had known the girl since childhood.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

It appears that Ambassador Harris is going to need to start packing a gun to protect himself after reading this article:

What if it had been a terrorist?

That must be what crossed the mind of U.S. Ambassador Harry Harris.

About 10 p.m. on Sept. 3, an intruder was caught prowling Habib House, the U.S. ambassador’s residence in downtown Seoul.

It is said Harris is not happy with the intrusion and the lack of adequate follow-up measures by Korean police.

The intruder proved to be a Korean-Chinese woman who arrived in Korea two days before the break-in.

When discovered in the house, she was reportedly speaking incoherently and making an unfounded claim that she was a relative of former President Lee Myung-bak, now in jail and being tried for corruption while in office, among other things.

It couldn’t be confirmed whether the ambassador was at home when the intrusion happened. But he is said to be upset about what could have happened if the woman was an IS terrorist trained to harm him.

He is said to be dissatisfied with the Korean police response, not even offering written assurances promising no repetition of a similar incident.

The Namdaemun police station, which is handling the case, told The Korea Times that the suspect was released 48 hours after the incident and it was no big deal.

“Breaking in and entering is not a serious crime,” a police officer said. “By law we could hold the woman for 48 hours. So we released her.”  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but based on the police response to this incident, any crazy leftist could break into the US ambassador’s house to launch a protest against the Trump administration’s North Korea policies with no consequences.

What makes this matter even worse is that the prior US ambassador Mark Lippert was brutally knifed in the face by inadequate Korean security.

Life is continuing to imitate the Duffel Blog.  Via a reader tip here comes the latest example:

Col. Mark Eugene Muth, 57, assigned to the command surgeon general’s office at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, was taken into custody Sept. 5 by Kettering Police for allegedly “causing a disturbance by shoving people in an attempt to get closer to the stage area,” according to the Dayton Daily News.

When the heavenly glow emanating from the legendary 1980s star simply became too much to bear, Muth reportedly charged ahead, perhaps in an effort to finally show the world that all those karaoke performances of “I’ll tumble for ya” had paid off.

This should serve as a warning to USFK officials that the Korean media now controlled by the political left will make big news out of any USFK crime story they can find, to include one that happened two years ago that they just heard about:

A former U.S. senior airman is serving a 15-year jail sentence for sexually molesting two South Korean male orphans and possessing dozens of child pornography videos, court records showed.

Robert Kelgard, who was stationed at Kunsan Air Base, 270 kilometers south of Seoul, between 2012 and 2013, was convicted by a court-martial in April 2016, Col. John Bosone, the commander of the 8th Fighter Wing at the base, confirmed the information last week in a response to questions from Yonhap News Agency.

Bosone called Kelgard’s crimes “heinous and despicable,” noting that his wrongdoings have resulted in his dishonorable discharge from the Air Force, 15 years of confinement in military prison, total forfeiture of pay and allowance, and demotion.

“As soon as United States Air Force investigators stationed at Kunsan Air Base were made aware of the incidents, they, with Korean National Police, immediately and aggressively investigated the allegations, and Kelgard was militarily prosecuted for his crimes,” the commander said.

“This is a very shameful past moment for Kunsan Air Base and our community,” he added, stressing that the crimes by the “predator” are not reflective of U.S. service members who serve here for the defense of South Korea under an alliance treaty.  [Yonhap]

You can read much more at the link, but considering that the molestation crime happened off post the ROK authorities could have asked to prosecute him.  However, like we have seen with other incidents ROK authorities have let USFK prosecute servicemembers if the crime does not become well known in the Korean media because the perpetrator for a sex crime receives greater punishment.

Korean Sex Crimes: Sharing the public information of a sex offender = 3 million won fine (£2000~). Sharing the naked pictures of your girlfriend online without her consent = 2 million won fine (£1400~).
Laws are fascinating. I should've studied law. #regrets #korea #phdlife

— Sini Kuusisto (@SiniPetriina) August 15, 2018

This was some smart thinking by this 9 year old Korean boy on vacation in Hawaii with his parents when he was kidnapped as part of a car theft:

A 9-year-old boy from South Korea and witnesses helped lead Honolulu police to the man who allegedly stole a car with the child inside in Kailua late Thursday morning.

Police said officers arrested a 35-year-old Enchanted Lake man on suspicion of kidnapping, auto theft, theft of property and two warrants after he allegedly stole a rental car with the boy inside.

Police gave the following account of the incident: The boy’s parents, visiting from Korea, left the child inside the car with the air conditioning on, and stopped near the Kailua boat ramp to take pictures of the scenery. At 11:23 a.m. near 729 Mokulua Drive, the suspect jumped into the car and drove off with the boy inside. The boy, who speaks English, asked the man to drop him off at Kalapawai Market and the suspect complied.

The child was able to give officers the car’s license plate number and a description of the vehicle, police said.

Witnesses called 911 and police located the car, which had collided with another vehicle at the intersection of Kamehameha Highway and Mokulele Drive in Kaneohe.

Police said the driver got out and ran on foot, but officers captured him a short distance away. The suspect had personal property from the vehicle on his person, police said.

The suspect was taken to Castle Medical Center with minor cuts to his hand received in the accident. He was later taken to the Kaneohe station for booking.  [Star Advertiser]