Category: crime & punishment

With so many people turning up missing you would think this guy would have become motivated to do his job. Hopefully he ends up spending time in jail for this to send a message to other lazy policemen:

A police officer, center, who was detained on charges including dereliction of duty and forging public electronic records, is transferred to the prosecution at Jeju Dongbu Police Station in Jeju City, Tuesday. Yonhap

The Jeju Provincial Police said Tuesday that an officer who prematurely closed multiple missing person cases on the island admitted to closing them to avoid the extra workload involved in keeping the cases open.

The controversy erupted after it emerged that the officer had closed the missing person case of Jang Mi-ran, a 37-year-old woman missing for months, without confirming her whereabouts. Last week, police said they had removed all four officers in the chain of command at Jeju Seobu Police Station from their duties, pending an investigation.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

I wonder what is causing a rise in crime on Jeju? 🤔

The concentration of cases, and the local police’s failures surrounding some of them, has unsettled residents and visitors alike.

“Many people come to Jeju to stay for several months at a time. I’ve heard that some tenants are canceling their leases following the recent incidents.” a Jeju resident surnamed Cho, who runs a short-term rental business, wrote on Instagram. (…….)

Tourism businesses in Jeju are particularly on edge as the island is already grappling with a decline in domestic visitors.

According to the Jeju Tourism Organization, 963,401 domestic travelers visited the island in July, down 12.4 percent, or 136,620, from 1,100,021 a year earlier. It marked the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020 that Jeju’s monthly domestic visitor count fell below 1 million.

The downward trend continued into August. From Aug. 1-23, Jeju received an average of 35,295 domestic visitors per day, about 300 fewer than the 35,575 recorded during the same period last year.

According to data from the Korean National Police Agency, the island recorded the country’s highest crime rate in 2024, at 4,539.6 crimes per 100,000 people. The rate is calculated based on Jeju’s resident population of around 663,000, while the island receives millions of visitors each year.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

It will see if the premature closing of the missing person cases was nefarious or just laziness on the investigator:

 A police officer suspected of closing a missing person case without confirming the woman’s safety has been placed under emergency arrest, police said Sunday.

The officer was detained without a warrant the previous day on suspicion of dereliction of duty, falsifying official electronic records, and obstruction of official duties through deceptive means, according to the Jeju Provincial Police Agency.

The emergency arrest was made after the officer was found to have closed another missing person case prematurely, revealed through the discovery of the man’s body on Saturday.

The missing woman, 37-year-old Jang Mi-ran, has yet to be found, more than three months after she was initially reported missing by her family.

In both cases, the police officer is suspected of arbitrarily closing them after telling the families that the missing people were safe.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Considering how calculating her murders were it would seem she would deserve the death penalty:

Prosecutors on Tuesday sought the death penalty for a woman accused of killing two men and injuring four others by giving them laced drinks.

Kim So-young faces charges of giving drinks spiked with benzodiazepine, a depressant, to three men between December 2025 and February this year. Two died, while one recovered.

She faces additional charges of causing bodily injury to three more men using similar methods.

The prosecution requested the Seoul Northern District Court to sentence her to death during the final hearing of her trial. 

Kim has claimed that she handed the drinks to stop the men from touching her.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I wonder how many times these cops have pulled off successfully this tactic without getting caught?:

A police inspector standing trial over an alleged unlawful arrest was found to have lured a suspect who had voluntarily arrived at a police station to a nearby subway station, arrested him there and falsely claimed in official documents that he had been “found by chance.” The suspect was held in illegal detention for more than 10 days. Prosecutors on July 14 indicted the 40-year-old inspector, identified by his surname Woo, from the Seoul Yeongdeungpo Police Station without detention on charges including abuse of authority through an unlawful arrest and falsifying arrest records.

According to the indictment, a suspect in a special theft case contacted Inspector Woo at about 1:16 p.m. on May 22, saying he had arrived at the first floor of the Yeongdeungpo Police Station’s main building. The suspect had called Woo the previous day at around 5 p.m. and told him he would appear by 1 p.m. But Woo and two junior officers from his team had already been waiting near a subway station for about an hour, starting around 12:30 p.m., to carry out an emergency arrest.

After receiving the message that the suspect had arrived at the police station, Woo instructed him to walk toward a nearby subway station. The suspect followed the instruction and encountered police officers on the way. He was arrested at a nearby cafe at around 1:30 p.m., just 14 minutes after arriving at the police station. Prosecutors said Woo’s instruction was intended to create a false account of events suggesting that the suspect had been unexpectedly encountered in public.

Donga Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

The hits just keep coming for the PPP:

A Seoul court convicted former President Yoon Suk Yeol of election law violations Monday, putting the main opposition party at risk of returning nearly 40 billion won (US$27.3 million) that was reimbursed in campaign expenses for the 2022 presidential election.

The Seoul Central District Court sentenced Yoon to 18 months in prison, suspended for three years, after finding him guilty of making false statements as the People Power Party (PPP)’s presidential candidate ahead of the election in March 2022.

If the verdict is finalized through appeals, the PPP will be forced to return the 39.7 billion won it was reimbursed in campaign expenses by the election watchdog after Yoon’s victory in the 2022 election.

Yonhap

Here is what election law violations were he was convicted of:

Special counsel Min Joong-ki’s team earlier indicted Yoon on suspicion of falsely claiming during a December 2021 press event that he had never introduced a lawyer to a former tax official.

Yoon was also charged for lying in a January 2022 interview when he said a party official had introduced him to shaman Jeon Seong-bae and denied meeting Jeon together with his wife, Kim Keon Hee.

The court found Yoon guilty on both charges, accepting the special counsel’s argument that Yoon had in fact introduced the lawyer to the former tax official and had met Jeon through his wife’s introduction.

“The nature of the offense is very grave as false information was publicized on a matter that drew great voter interest,” the court said.

Some I doubt voters really cared about either interview, but if the standard is that politicians should be jailed for lying in interviews it seems there should be a lot more special counsels being initiated to investigate. By the way could you imagine how many politicians would be prosecuted if the U.S. had a similar law?

It seems trying to use an ear piece to cheat would be challenging without also have a camera to relay what is on the test? If the person had to speak to relay what is on the test that would be highly suspicious. No wonder they got caught:

Police said Tuesday they have apprehended about 10 people suspected of either taking the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK) on behalf of others for money or using advanced equipment, such as tiny earpieces, to relay answers to test-takers.

Most of them are Chinese nationals based in China who are believed to have promoted cheating on TOPIK through Chinese social media, according to the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency (SMPA).

TOPIK is a language proficiency test for foreigners whose native language is not Korean.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

This is definitely a danger of publicly trying to predict stocks, that someone will blame you personally for losses:

A man in his 20s was arrested by police in Busan on suspicion of attacking a stock investment YouTuber with a weapon. Investigations revealed he harbored resentment after suffering losses from investments he made based solely on the YouTuber’s advice.

The Busan Nambu Police Station announced on the 14th that it had detained a man in his 20s, identified as Mr. A, on charges of attempted murder.

Mr. A is accused of stabbing a man in his 40s, identified as Mr. B, multiple times with a weapon around 8:09 a.m. on the 13th at a commercial building in Busan’s Nam District before fleeing the scene.

Mr. B was reportedly a stock investment YouTuber. Mr. A, a subscriber to Mr. B’s YouTube channel, allegedly acted on revenge after incurring significant losses from investments made solely based on Mr. B’s recommendations.

Chosun Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Here is another example of someone trying to use smart glasses to cheat on a test:

South Korean prosecutors have summarily indicted a man in his 40s for using AI-powered glasses to cheat on a national qualification exam, marking the country’s first legal action involving the devices.

The Gwangju District Prosecutors’ Office indicted the man last month on charges of violating the National Technical Qualification Act, local media outlets reported Monday.

He was caught in May while taking a fire protection facilities engineer certification exam in Gwangju. An exam supervisor reportedly became suspicious after noticing light reflected on the lenses of his glasses.

During the investigation, the man admitted cheating and said he had developed an AI application linked to the glasses and wanted to see whether the correct answers would be displayed properly.

Two other men in their 20s were booked after being caught using the same method at national technical qualification exam sites in Seoul and Mokpo that month.

AI glasses were also used in several TOEIC cheating cases, with two people caught in May and another in June.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but these are just examples of the people who were caught, how many unqualified people may have passed national testing before proctors caught on?