Search Results for: camp humphreys corruption

This isn’t the first and likely not the last large corruption case to happen at Camp Humphreys:

More than two dozen South Koreans, including several employed by the U.S. military, were indicted on charges of employment fraud following a two-year investigation, South Korean police said Monday.

Twenty-six people, including 10 current and former U.S. Forces Korea employees, pocketed roughly $138,700 in exchange for preferential treatment of Korean job candidates between April 2018 and December 2020, the Daegu Metropolitan Police statement said. 

USFK is the military command in charge of roughly 28,500 troops on the Korean Peninsula.

Two defendants, including an official with the USFK Labor Service Corps, were arrested according to police. The labor official and others are suspected of receiving between $23,800 and $31,700 from five job seekers in exchange for favorable reviews during their interviews.

The defendants allegedly created fake certifications required for employment. Police confiscated around $126,800 from the defendants prior to their arrest.

The investigation was launched after the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division obtained information about the bribes and relayed it to South Korean authorities. An Eighth Army spokesman declined to comment on whether the suspects were privy to sensitive military information.

“These arrests involved persons and activities that may be related to the Korean Service Corps and are currently the subject of a criminal investigation,” Army Lt. Col. Neil Penttila said in a statement Tuesday. “We will withhold further comment until the completion of that investigation.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

A facility that was plagued by corruption and mismanagement to construct is closer to fully opening:

 After years of delays, the U.S. military held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday for a new, $275 million hospital, marking a turning point in the relocation of most American forces to this expanded base south of Seoul.

The opening of the 68-bed Brian D. Allgood Army Community Hospital, also known as BAACH, allows its namesake facility on Yongsan Garrison in Seoul to close. The new hospital, which had already offered outpatient services, will officially open for inpatients on Nov. 15.

The U.S. military broke ground for the hospital and ambulatory care center in November 2012 on land that had been used for helicopter hangars. But construction problems and quality control issues filled the years that followed, as the South Korean contractor Samsung C&T Corp. struggled to meet rigid U.S. standards.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

It appears there are more problems with the quality of work done constructing the new buildings on Camp Humphreys:

A 10-year-old girl was stuck in an elevator for 45 minutes before somebody heard her screaming and called for help, her mother said.
Soldiers complained about mold and temperature control problems in the barracks.
Residents of Camp Humphreys gave commanders an earful Friday during a town-hall meeting about housing woes on the U.S. military’s new headquarters base in the rural area of Pyeongtaek, about 55 miles south of Seoul.
Military and housing officials, who seemed surprised by the severity of some of the complaints, responded swiftly by sending people to check on the situation the next day.
But many in the audience asked how the problems were allowed to occur considering many of the facilities are new and touted as state of the art.
The meeting, held in the Four Chaplains memorial chapel, was part of a military-wide outreach effort seeking feedback from soldiers and their loved ones following congressional testimony and media reports revealing dangerous conditions on bases in the United States.

Stars & Stripes

Here is what the USFK Commander had to say about this, which was essentially don’t blame us, but we are trying to fix it:

U.S. Forces Korea commander Gen. Robert Abrams explained that the Army Corps of Engineers, which oversaw the expansion project, could not do quality checks until 80 percent of the project was complete according to the bilateral agreement.
The hospital and some other facilities have failed that test in the past, forcing the builders to go back and fix things even if that meant starting from scratch.
“We’re actually at the mercy, if you will, of those contractors,” he told the audience.
The four-star later clarified that he understands why South Korea wanted the oversight since it is making such a huge investment in the base.
“We can provide feedback, which we do. We have direct access and we’re pretty aggressive about it,” he told Stars and Stripes. “I was really driving home the point that this is not the garrison’s fault and it’s not our Corps of Engineers’ fault.”

You can read more at the link, but the Camp Humphreys expansion project has been plagued by corruption scandals over the years so the fact Soldiers are dealing with apparently poor construction should not be too surprising to everyone.

The last part of the Yongsan Garrison relocation to Camp Humphreys will not be complete until late next year:

No building epitomizes the problems that have plagued the expansion of this Army garrison south of Seoul more than its new hospital.

The U.S. military broke ground for the Brian Allgood Army Community Hospital and Ambulatory Care Center in November 2012 on land that had been used for helicopter hangars. But numerous quality control issues and delays filled the years that followed, as the South Korean contractor struggled to meet rigid U.S. standards.

The South Korean-funded construction of the five-story, 68-bed complex is slated to be largely finished and accepted by U.S. authorities by the end of June, nearly three years past the original deadline and $67 million over budget.

Americans will then begin furnishing and equipping the facility, which is due to open for patients on Nov. 15, 2019.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read much more at the link on what caused all the delays.  The contractor blames differences in construction codes between the US and South Korea.  The article however made no mention of the various corruption scandals involving the Camp Humphreys expansion project.

The corruption probes and investigations surrounding the expansion of the US military base Camp Humphreys in South Korea continues:

South Korean prosecutors have raided the offices of one of the nation’s largest conglomerates amid allegations it offered multimillion-dollar kickbacks to the US Army in exchange for construction contracts.

Dozens of investigators were dispatched to the headquarters of SK Engineering and Construction in downtown Seoul on Friday to confiscate computer hard disks, documents and other material related to construction projects at a new US army base in South Korea’s Pyeongtaek county.

The prosecutors are investigating allegations that the company — an affiliate of the nation’s third-largest conglomerate, SK — gave almost $3m to a US army officer in 2010 to steer a $420m dollar construction contract in its favour.

The officer, Duane Nishiie of the US Army Engineers Corp, was indicted in September in Hawaii on charges including bribery, wire fraud and money laundering related to the case. Lee Seung-ju, a former officer in the procurement department of Seoul’s defence ministry, was indicted on the same charges.

SK Engineering and Construction declined to comment. US Forces Korea was not immediately available to comment.

“The raid was needed to look into the bribery claims linked to a US military contract,” the prosecutor in charge of the investigation told the Financial Times.   [The Financial Times]

You can read the rest at the link.

Via a reader tip comes this news that President Trump’s first stop in South Korea will be to Camp Humphreys:

U.S. President Donald Trump will visit Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, as the first destination during his visit to South Korea from Nov. 7 to 8, officials said Tuesday.

It will be the first visit of a U.S. president to the headquarters of the Eighth U.S. Army which relocated there in July.

The Eighth Army moved to the post after more than 60 years at Yongsan, central Seoul, as part of the U.S. Department of Defense’s relocation project for U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) following more than a decade of planning since 2003.

Camp Humphreys is the largest U.S. Army Garrison overseas. It occupies 14.68 square kilometers of land ― three times the size of the Yongsan garrison ― with 513 buildings including schools, shops and banks as well as other facilities such as gyms, theaters and a water park for USFK personnel and their families.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but I wonder if 8th Army senior leaders will mention all the anti-US protests, fraud, corruption, delays, and the fact units are moving into incomplete buildings that occurred to get this expansion project complete?  No probably not, but it would be great to see President Trump’s reaction to if he saw pictures like this from a past protest to stop the expansion project:

Considering the expansion of Camp Humphreys has been going on for over a decade it would seem surprising that these buildings are not ready yet, but considering all the corruption going on it seems no one is surprised:

Camp Humphreys may accept buildings with minor flaws as planners face a new urgency to complete the long-delayed expansion of the Army garrison and future home of U.S. Forces Korea, the commander says.

Col. Scott Mueller, who assumed command of the garrison in June, stressed that no compromises will be made on “life, health or safety.” But he said cosmetic concerns and less serious problems may be fixed later as long as the facility is ready for use.

“Circumstances have changed now, where in the past they were just construction projects. There were delays that really wouldn’t have operational impact,” he told Stars and Stripes during an interview at his office on Tuesday. “But now we’re looking at it as, ‘Hey we’re moving. Let’s get these buildings done.’”

The relocation effort is gaining momentum amid a growing nuclear and missile threat from North Korea. Mueller said his No. 1 priority is military readiness and base defense, followed by family needs and customer service.  [Stars & Stripes via a reader tip]

You can read more at the link.

I feel bad for the guy that died trying to stop one of these suicides from happening, but I do think there was probably more going on with these two that killed themselves considering the corruption probe that is happening:

Failure to meet deadlines and pay contractors on time may have contributed to the deaths this past spring of three South Koreans working on the U.S. Army’s massive expansion of Camp Humphreys, according to local police.

Two South Korean workers committed suicide in separate incidents in May, while a third man died from injuries after trying to intervene in one of the deaths.

The head of a subcontracting company set himself on fire May 8 at a Humphreys work site and died at a hospital 10 days later. The man, surnamed Han, claimed to be nearly $1.8 million in debt, police said. Media reports said that Han may not have been paid by the contracting company that hired his firm and may have been unable to pay his company’s taxes.

Another man who tried to save, Han died May 22, police said.

The third man, an employee of Samsung C&T Corp. surnamed Kim, hanged himself May 7 in an off-post dormitory for Samsung employees, a Pyeongtaek police official said.

Kim had been overseeing the base hospital’s construction but failed to meet building deadlines and was demoted to head of construction for the dental clinic, the officer said. Kim killed himself because he was upset over the demotion, police said.

Suicide in South Korea is the fourth-leading cause of death overall, after cancer, stroke and heart disease, according to the World Health Organization.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link.

The relocation of MCAS Futenma on Okinawa is starting to turn into the Yongsan Garrison relocation boondoggle that Korea experienced over multiple decades:

The relocation of a U.S. Marine Corps base to a less-crowded area of the southern Japanese island of Okinawa will take more than twice as much money and time as previously estimated because of the need to stabilize the reclaimed land it will be built on, Japan’s government said Wednesday.

The Defense Ministry said the relocation of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from densely populated Ginowanto Henoko on Okinawa’s eastern coast will cost $8.5 billion and take 12 years, pushing its completion into the 2030s. That adds more than a decade to the plan, which has already been delayed by more than 20 years because of local opposition and other reasons.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but I wonder if this project will be filled with the shoddy construction and corruption like what we saw in the Yongsan Garrison relocation?

More corruption charges related to the Camp Humphreys relocation project:

A 58-year-old Pearl City man is in custody at the Federal Detention Center on charges that he accepted and hid more than $2.8 million in bribes that he solicited to steer more than $400 million worth of engineering and construction work to a particular South Korean-based multinational company when he worked as a contracting officer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

A federal grand jury returned an indictment Thursday charging Duane Nishiie and South Korean national Seung-Ju Lee, 50, with conspiracy, bribery, wire fraud, money laundering and lying in connection with the awarding of two contracts that are part of a massive, ongoing U.S. Army relocation project in South Korea.

Nishiie pleaded not guilty Friday. Lee has yet to answer to the charges.  (…….)

According to the indictment, Nishiie and Lee steered a December 2008 infrastructure and engineering contract worth more than $400 million to a particular company and a March 2010 construction contract worth more than $6 million to the same company in exchange for bribes. Lee was an officer in the procurement arm of the Korean Ministry of Defense, which is working with the U.S. government on the Army relocation project.  [Honolulu Star Advertiser]

You can read more at the link.