Category: crime & punishment

With this new policy kids at the age of 13 can spend time in jail instead of youth correction centers:

 The age of criminal responsibility will be lowered by one year from the current 14, the Ministry of Justice said Wednesday, announcing measures to cope with an increasing number of serious crimes committed by juveniles.

The ministry said it will revise the criminal and juvenile laws to lower the criminal age limit to be able to charge youths criminally from the age of 13.

Currently, minors under the age of 14 cannot be convicted of a crime in South Korea. If such children commit offenses, they are referred to community service programs or youth correction institutions.

Under the soon-to-be revised laws, 13-year-old middle school first or second grade students, for instance, will be subject to criminal punishment if they commit a crime.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This will be pretty significant if the prosecutors succeed in arresting the former ROK Defense Minister over the death of the fishery official by the North Koreans two years ago:

 Prosecutors sought arrest warrants Tuesday for former Defense Minister Suh Wook and former Coast Guard Commissioner General Kim Hong-hee in an investigation into the previous administration’s handling of the 2020 death of a fisheries official at the hands of North Korea.

The two are facing various charges, including dereliction of duty, abuse of power and creating false official documents in connection with the Moon Jae-in administration’s conclusion without sufficient evidence that the fisheries official was killed while attempting to defect to the North.

Critics have accused the Moon administration of drawing the conclusion to curry favor with Pyongyang.

Prosecutors suspect Suh deliberately erased intelligence reports that suggest the official, Lee Dae-jun, did not intend to defect, and ordered officials to write false facts for a report for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Kim — who was responsible for an investigation into the death at the time — is under suspicion of using fabricated facts to conclude that Lee had intended to defect.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It is pretty amazing that this guy only got 15 years for raping 11 children. The odds seem high that at some point he is going to do this again:

The prosecution requested the court to issue an arrest warrant for serial child rapist Kim Geun-sik, Saturday, two days before he was set to be released from prison, as a woman filed charges that he raped her 16 years ago when she was a minor.

Kim was expected to be released this Monday after serving 15 years in jail on charges of having raped 11 minors.

According to the prosecution, the victim recently recognized Kim’s face as the man who sexually assaulted her 16 years ago, as the media began to report on his release using his mugshot photo. She filed new charges against him with the prosecution.

Prosecutors said they analyzed relevant evidence and proved that Kim had been the attacker in the case. 

“Not only is Kim’s crime very serious, but also there’s a possibility of Kim running away as he has no permanent residence at the moment. He could recommit such crimes, or do harm to the victims. That’s why we requested an arrest warrant,” the prosecution said.

If Kim is released Monday, he is scheduled to move into a facility affiliated with the justice ministry that helps released prisoners reintegrate into society, by offering housing as well as psychiatric, educational and other services, similar to what is known in English as a “halfway house.” As Kim was assigned to enter such a facility located in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province, residents who have children attending school nearby have expressed their worries. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

That is a lot of meth, hopefully they keep this guy in jail to do his full sentence:

A regional court meted out a 30-year prison term to a man on Thursday on charges of smuggling in 902 kilograms of methamphetamine from Mexico, the biggest amount of drug smuggling ever in South Korea, officials said. 

The 38-year-old, whose name was withheld, was accused of bringing in the drugs in December 2019 and July 2020 from Mexico in collusion with an international crime ring. 

He and his accomplice allegedly imported the drugs hidden inside helical gears and smuggled 498 kilograms back to Australia, according to court records. 

Worth about 3 trillion won (US$2.1 billion) in retail price and enough for 30 million doses, the smuggled drugs mark the biggest ever amount brought into the country in its drug smuggling history.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This would make for a great Dog the Bounty Hunter episode hunting this guy down:

South Korean prosecutors said Sunday that Do Kwon, the wanted founder of Terraform Labs accused of fraud following the massive collapse of the firm’s cryptocurrencies in May, is “obviously on the run” and not cooperating with the investigation.

The remarks came in response to Kwon’s claim in a tweet that “I am not ‘on the run’ or anything similar — for any government agency that has shown interest to communicate, we are in full cooperation and we don’t have anything to hide.”

On Saturday, Singapore police’s statement said the Terraform founder and CEO is no longer in Singapore.

The blockchain firm has been under investigation for alleged fraud and tax evasion after investors in its cryptocurrencies — TerraUSD and Luna — filed complaints against Kwon in May, accusing him of a Ponzi scheme over the loss of billions of won following the crash of both coins earlier that month.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is a bizarre murder case:

A woman believed to be the mother of two children whose bodies were found in suitcases in New Zealand last month was apprehended in South Korea on Thursday, police said.

The woman, known as a South Korean-born New Zealand citizen in her 40s, was arrested at an apartment in Ulsan, 307 kilometers southeast of Seoul, the National Police Agency said.

Local police had tracked down the woman at the request of New Zealand police after the remains of the two children believed to have been killed in 2018 at ages 7 and 10, respectively, were found on Aug. 11 in suitcases bought by a resident of Auckland, New Zealand, at an auction.

New Zealand police then launched a manhunt after presuming the woman as the mother of the two children and the murder suspect.

The woman born in South Korea is said to have acquired New Zealand nationality after her immigration, and her husband is reported to have died of a disease there.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but if this woman killed her two kids the police may want to investigate the circumstances around her husband’s death as well.

As the old saying goes, the cover up is usually worse than the original crime:

The 100-day special counsel investigation into the sexual abuse of Air Force Master Sgt. Lee Ye-ram came to a close on Tuesday, with eight officers indicted on new charges.

Special counsel Ahn Mi-young told a news conference that the officers of the Air Force’s 20th fighter wing where Lee served appear to have sought to help the perpetrator rather than the victim, and that the military investigators did not actively work to bring justice.

“Let this be a warning that when the armed forces investigate their own and attempt a cover-up, there will be consequences,” she said, adding that she worked with the “determination to fix the old flaws of the military criminal justice systems.”

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.