Tag: graffiti

It is good to see that the police caught the idiots responsible for putting graffiti on the Gyeongbok Palace walls. Hopefully they receive strict punishment to serve as a deterrent to anyone else thinking of doing this as well:

Police on Tuesday arrested two teenagers for drawing 44-meter-long graffiti on the walls of a historic palace in central Seoul last weekend, officials said. 

Police caught a 17-year-old male at his home in Suwon, 30 kilometers south of Seoul, on Tuesday evening before arresting his 16-year-old female accomplice nearby minutes later, according to the Seoul Jongno Police Station.

On Saturday, the suspects repeatedly sprayed the phrase “free movie” in Korean with red and blue paint on both sides of the western gate to Gyeongbok Palace and palace walls near the National Palace Museum of Korea.

Also sprayed were the names of illegal video-sharing and streaming platforms, with similar graffiti also found on the walls of the nearby Seoul Metropolitan Agency.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I can’t stand people who leave graffiti everywhere. It is great to see the Koreans were able to get him extradited. Too bad they don’t do canings in Korea for graffiti like they do in Singapore:

A suibway car with graffiti. A 27 year-old American and a 28 year-old Italian is suspected of painting the cars last year. [iNCHEON TRANSIT CORPORATION]

The Incheon District Court on Friday started reviewing an arrest warrant request for a 27-year old American accused of breaking into subway garages and spray-painting graffiti on trains last year.    
   
The unnamed American was extradited to Korea on Wednesday from Romania. An Interpol red notice was issued and on Nov. 12, and the American was arrested by local police in Romania.    
   
The American covered his face with a baseball hat, glasses and a face mask in his court appearance Friday.   

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

If this actually did happen the people who did it would make a much stronger statement if they were able to take pictures of the graffiti and smuggle it outside of the country for publication:

The North Korean authorities have been put on high alert after discovering anti-Kim Jong Un graffiti defacing a major government building in the capital earlier this month.

“A person scribbled an anti-Kim Jong Un message on one of the outer walls of the ‘April 25 House of Culture’ in Pyongyang before dawn on March 1,” a resident of Pyongyang reported to Daily NK on March 19.

“The atmosphere is extremely tense now, with expectations that Kim Jong Un will soon personally hand down instructions over the matter.”

When asked what the exact words used in the anti-regime graffiti were, the source said he did not know, only that such graffiti appeared, and that in an attempt to track down the perpetrator, the authorities are conducting handwriting tests on residents and renewing scrutiny of the city’s non-official resident population.

Kim Jong Un has also reportedly ordered the country’s top intelligence agencies including the Ministry of State Security and Ministry of People’s Security to take part in a month-long emergency training course in response to the graffiti incident, likely in an attempt to strengthen the political and ideological resolve of its members.   [Daily NK]

What an idiot:

An Australian, whose identity is unknown, has been arrested for defacing a subway car, according to Suseo Police Station Sunday.

According to police, the man, 22, and his girlfriend arrived on Mar. 27, and stayed at a hotel near Hongik University.

The man broke into Gangnam Subway Depot and drew graffiti on a subway car on Apr. 1, after being told wrongly he could do this.

He left for Japan the next day, but was arrested on Sunday after stopping at Incheon International Airport for a flight back to Australia.  [Korea Times]

I wonder if this guy is friends with the group of Australians that defaced these Seoul subway cars two years ago?

I am glad the Korean authorities caught these two because I can’t stand people who steal or leave graffiti everywhere:

Police have arrested two Russians for allegedly vandalizing subway cars in Daegu and stealing clothes from department stores in Seoul and Busan.

Daegu Dongbu Police Station said on Monday that the two men, 22 and 20, allegedly painted the word “ONAS” — meaning “we” in Russian — on two subway cars at a depot in the city’s Dong-gu district around 1:40 a.m. on Oct. 16.

A Daegu department store employee reported the men to police.

After analyzing CCTV footage, police discovered that the graffiti suspects were wanted by Busan Jungbu Police Station on a charge of stealing clothes worth 7.5 million won ($6,620) from department stores in Seoul and Busan on Oct. 11 and 12, respectively.

According to Daegu police, the Russians stole the clothes and vandalized the subway cars “for fun.” [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

I hope this one western trend that some Koreans will not think is cool to take up:

Graffiti has been spotted in at least 20 subway stations over the past two weeks. Unlike the elaborate work of graffiti artists – with a distinct aesthetic or message – the recent graffiti were mere scribbles done in less than a minute.

Stations with graffiti problems include Jamsil, Gangnam, Konkuk University, Hapjeong, and Sangsu.

There’s a history to Korea’s subway graffiti problem. In May 2016, a subway car idled in a garage in Incheon was found with two drawings spraypainted on it.

In May 2015, a Latvian graffiti artist and three others were arrested for defacing Seoul Metro subway cars. In February 2015, a group of four Australians fled Korea after covering subway cars in Wangsimni, Anam, and Sinnonhyeon stations in graffiti.

The Korea Railway Police feared that foreign graffiti artists were targeting its cars – and circulating information on how to penetrate certain stations with lax security.

Current law states that graffiti corresponds to property damage described in Article 336 of the criminal code. Guilty parties can be imprisoned for a maximum of three years or fined up to 7 million won ($6,290).

Additional punishment is possible if multiple people were involved, according to the Law on Punishment of Violent Acts.

However, it is not easy to track down graffiti aficionados, since they work stealthily.

“We have found through CCTV footage that there was one culprit involved, but it is difficult to detect the identity of the suspect,” said a police official in charge of a recent graffiti case at Jamsil Station on subway line No. 2. “The person in question committed the crime and fled within a minute. Obscure scribbles 30 cm (1 foot) wide and 50 cm (1.6 feet) tall were written in marker on the walls of a passageway.

“Foreign culprits are more difficult to arrest since many have left the nation when investigations have started,” said Kim Hyeon-mo, an investigator of the Korea Railway Police.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

A train with the word “BLiND” graffitied on it at a subway station in the southeastern city of Daegu is shown in this photo provided on May 26, 2015, by the Daegu Suseong Police. The police said that the graffiti, which was discovered on May 10, was the work of two male foreigners who broke into the train station through an external vent. (Yonhap)