Category: crime & punishment

Korea has got to make sure they don’t allow drugs to become a major social problem like it has become in many western nations where it drives crime and homelessness:

Korea’s customs agency said Tuesday it has captured a record amount of drugs in the first half of this year, enough to be used by more than 5 million people.

The amount of illegal drugs seized at borders jumped 39 percent on-year to 329 kilograms during the January-June period, according to the data compiled by the Korea Customs Service (KCS).

It is the largest ever figure for any first six months of a year, and the confiscated amount this year can be used by 5.05 million people at the same time.

But the number of smuggling attempts fell 12 percent on-year to 325 cases, as the average volume involved in a single case has grown, the agency added.

The growth in drug smuggling came as Korea tightened its border control, coupled with the growing demand for narcotics here and the subsequent rising prices, the KCS said.

Of the 325 cases, 45.8 percent, or 149 cases, were carried out through international mail, followed by express cargo with 92 cases and air travelers with 81.

By type, methamphetamine accounted for 42.5 percent of the drugs seized, followed by hemp with 25.2 percent and ketamine with 7.3 percent.

By origin, the United States and Thailand accounted for 24.3 percent of the volume, or 80 kg, each, followed by Laos with 11.85 percent and Vietnam with 9.7 percent. China accounted for 5.8 percent, or 19 kg, the data showed. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but I wonder how many of the Americans caught smuggling are the idiots trying to mail themselves marijuana thinking they won’t get caught?

I almost feel bad for Cho Kuk, his life crashed after trying to carry out former President Moon’s orders when he was his Justice Minister:

 Former Justice Minister Cho Kuk, currently under trial on academic fraud charges connected to his daughter and son, said Monday he respects his children’s decision to renounce controversial academic degrees.

Cho, a former Seoul National University professor who served as a justice minister under the previous Moon Jae-in administration, made the remark as he appeared for a hearing at the Seoul High Court in southern Seoul. 

An appeal trial is currently under way after Cho was given a two-year prison term on charges connected to his children’s admission to a medical school and a graduate school. 

Last week, Cho Min, the ex-minister’s daughter, dropped her lawsuits filed to reverse decisions by Korea University and Pusan National University’s Graduate School of Medicine to revoke her admissions, saying she will “go back to the starting point and start again with a clean slate.”

The ex-minister’s son also announced through a lawyer a decision to relinquish his master’s degree in political science from Yonsei University Graduate School last week.

“As a father, my heart ached but I decided to respect their decisions to begin anew from the starting point,” the ex-minister said. 

“Since a guilty sentence was finalized for professor Chung Kyung-sim at the Supreme Court, she herself and the family humbly accepted it and are reflecting on themselves,” Cho said, referring to his wife who is currently serving a four-year prison sentence on academic fraud and other charges.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but if Cho Kuk had never accepted the Justice Minister position and had not tried to limit the power of prosecutors none of the academic fraud stuff would have come to light. It was used to take him out and it worked.

Here is another infant murder case in Korea this time involving a father and grandmother:

 A father was put under emergency detention Thursday on charges of killing a newborn and abandoning the body in collusion with the baby’s maternal grandmother, police said, the latest in a string of child abuse cases involving unregistered babies.

The man in his 40s was first taken into custody in Yongin, south of Seoul, in the wee hours of Thursday on charges of murder and corpse abandonment before the grandmother in her 60s was detained later in the day on the same charges, police said.

The pair allegedly killed the newborn not long after he was born in March 2015 and abandoned his body on a nearby hill. How the baby was killed was not known, but a direct means could have been used as murder charges were brought against them.

They reportedly committed the crime while the baby’s mother was recovering after labor, and the husband allegedly lied to his wife, saying the baby was going to die soon as he was born sick.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This sentence seems fair to me considering the deliveryman was accosted by the drunken man and he did not mean to cause his death:

The Busan District Court on Tuesday handed down a suspended sentence to a deliveryman for causing the death of a resident in an apartment complex after a physical altercation over the use of an elevator.

The court imposed a two-year jail sentence suspended for three years with 80 hours of community service.

The deliveryman faced charges of manslaughter after he pushed the resident with his shoulder, causing the resident to fall head-first to the floor and suffer a traumatic brain hemorrhage.

The altercation took place in January when the resident, who was intoxicated at the time, kicked the delivery cart and verbally abused the deliveryman for occupying the elevator for approximately six minutes.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

This is something you don’t see very often in Seoul:

Surveillance footage showing two elderly women allegedly stealing goods and electrical cords from moving boxes has set off a police investigation and online outrage.

The footage, taken on Friday in Seoul, shows the two women rummanging through boxes temporarily placed outside a building during a move, while moving company employees were busy with other boxes.

According to the online post from the victim, the boxes were temporarily placed outside a building in the process of moving to another building 10 minutes away.

The video footage shows the duo working together, one keeping lookout while the other stole the goods.

A neighbor who saw the women alerted one of the movers, and when the mover attempted to restrain them, they dropped the toilet paper rolls and paper cups they were carrying and ran away while the mover was on the phone talking to the owner.

The items stolen include wire cords, a tablet PC and camping equipment amounting to one million won ($769).

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

This horrible and the couple said they killed the newborn because they were struggling financially:

A couple was arrested Sunday on charges of strangling their newborn baby to death and abandoning his body in the southern city of Geoje, police said, the latest in a series of child abuse cases involving unregistered babies.

A woman in her 30s and her partner in his 20s were charged with strangling the baby to death and burying his body on a mountain after the child died in their home in Geoje, 331 kilometers south of Seoul, five days after he was born in September last year. 

The two had initially claimed they found the baby dead on the morning of Sept. 9 and buried his body on a mountain the following day, but later confessed that they killed him and abandoned the body in a stream, officials said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Hopefully this elderly man is now receiving the assistance he needs so he does not have to shoplift again:

Donations are pouring in for a financially struggling Korean War veteran who was caught stealing food. 

According to police and officials at the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs on Monday, more than 20 people have so far contacted them to ask about ways to help the man who is now in his late 80s. Some offered cash, while others sent food and other daily necessities.

They decided to lend a helping hand and joined in following the news that the veteran was being investigated for allegedly stealing several bottles of sesame oil, canned fish and other food products worth 83,000 won ($64) between April and May.

After being apprehended, he immediately apologized and said he did so because he did not have enough money to buy food, police explained.

After serving in the war, the veteran worked as a fisherman for 30 years. Reportedly, he has two children he has lost contact with, and his wife died some years ago.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

The good old BAH scam that just never seems to go away:

A former Air Force noncommissioned officer has been charged by federal prosecutors with wire fraud, accusing him of proposing marriage to scores of women to bilk the Pentagon out of more than $100,000 in housing benefits.

D’Montre Green, a former Air Force staff sergeant, was charged June 16 in the alleged scheme that targeted at least 93 women, according to court documents filed last week in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Prosecutors said Green propositioned the women for marriage in April 2017 in an effort to boost his Basic Allowance for Housing stipend, which was set to decrease after his divorce one month earlier.

Green served in the Air Force from December 2011 until May 2022, according to prosecutors. He was stationed at Royal Air Force Lakenheath in the United Kingdom with the 48th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron when he began his spree of marriage proposals.

Green told the women in “text messages and mobile applications” that he would pay them part of his increased monthly BAH payment in exchange for a legal marriage, prosecutors said. Service members with dependents are entitled to higher housing stipends than single troopers. 

In one exchange, published in the court documents, Green compared such an arrangement to being a “sugar daddy,” but added sexual favors would not be part of the deal.

“So basically I would get paid extra from my job by having a spouse/dependent, which in return I’d be paying you [$]500 every month for the next [four] years or however long we agree if you’re interested,” Green wrote to one woman. “And no, I’m not expecting you to live with me or do any favors, just a title as a wife.”

One woman from Abilene, Texas, who was not identified by name in the court documents, agreed to marry Green in April 2017 “for the purpose of obtaining increased military benefits, including BAH, to which he would otherwise not be entitled.” Green and the woman were married by proxy, while Green was still in the U.K., according to prosecutors.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but what this idiot did was claim his fake wife lived in San Francisco, one of the highest areas for BAH. What these BAH fraudsters fail to realize is that any time you put a high income BAH location on your paperwork it will eventually get investigated. Sure enough Army investigators caught up this idiot. If he would have just put Abilene, Texas where his fake wife lived he would have likely never been caught.

This is really morbid:

The whereabouts of another unregistered baby is unknown, officials said Thursday, after two undocumented babies were found dead in a refrigerator, revealing serious problems with the country’s birth registration and child abuse prevention systems.

The Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency said it booked a woman in her 20s on charges of abandoning her baby. She claimed she gave away the baby to a stranger she got to know online a month after giving birth in December 2021, but police believe her statement is suspicious.

The incident is the second such case after a woman in her 30s was taken into custody Wednesday for killing two babies shortly after their births in 2018 and 2019, and storing their bodies in a fridge in her apartment in Suwon, just south of Seoul.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.