Category: crime & punishment

Here is something you just don’t see happen with a high profile government official visiting South Korea. Considering he did this to a woman he doesn’t know during a state sponsored trip, you know he is doing this to women working around him in Vietnam:

This photo, provided by the defense ministry, shows Vice Defense Minister Lee Doo-hee (L) shaking hands with his Vietnamese counterpart, Hoang Xuan Chien, in Seoul on Sept. 11, 2025. (Yonhap)

 The defense ministry has summoned a Vietnamese defense attache stationed in South Korea over alleged sexual misconduct by Vietnam’s deputy defense minister during his visit to Seoul last month, military officials said Monday.

According to the officials, Senior Lt. Gen. Hoang Xuan Chien inappropriately touched a South Korean public servant during a banquet with high-ranking military officials on Sept. 11.

The Vietnamese vice defense minister was visiting Seoul on the occasion of the Seoul Defense Dialogue on Sept. 8-10.

Given the gravity of the case, the ministry summoned the Vietnamese defense attache eight days later to lodge a protest over the deputy minister’s behavior.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It looks a subcontractor was trying to skirt US immigration laws. With ICE strictly enforcing immigration laws companies need to do their due diligence to comply with them:

Nearly 500 people were arrested as part of an immigration raid at a Hyundai Motor battery plant under construction in Georgia as part of a criminal investigation into employment practices at the site, a Homeland Security official said Friday.

The operation Thursday resulted in the arrest of 475 individuals. More than 300 were South Korean nationals, according to an official from the country.

Those arrested had illegally crossed the border, entered through a visa waiver program that prohibited them from working or had overstayed their visas, Steven Schrank, a special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Atlant a, said at a press conference Friday morning.

“This was the largest single site enforcement operation in the history of Homeland Security investigations,” Schrank said.

Wall Street Journal

You can read more at the link, but instead of getting an H1B visa the workers had B1 visas. These visas are for attending business meetings not construction work. The subcontractor probably got their workers into the U.S. using the B1 visa because H1Bs are more complicated and highly scrutinized since you have to show an American can’t do the work.

What would Korea do if 300 Americans showed up on a wrong visa and began constructing a building in Seoul? They would probably have the same reaction to what is happening in Georgia.

There is a reason the police generally look at relatives first during a murder investigation because the statistics show a reletative is the likely culprit:

Nearly half of murders committed in Korea last year targeted family members such as parents, spouses and children, data showed Sunday.

According to the National Police Agency’s 2024 crime statistics, 131 of the 276 people apprehended for murder last year, or 47.5 percent, had killed a spouse, parent, child or other relative.

The share hovered around 30 percent between 2020 and 2022, but in 2023, it surged to 55.1 percent, or 160 out of 290 murder suspects. The apparent sharp rise was partly due to a change in methodology that year, when cases involving former spouses or common-law partners began to be counted. The proportion has since remained close to half.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link. What I find interesting about this stat is that in all of Korea last year there was 276 murders. For comparison in 2023 in Washington, DC there was 273 murders. Yet the Democrats and the media want people believe there is not a crime problem in Washington DC when that one city has nearly the same total number of murders as an entire major country.

For anyone curious what the former President and his wife are eating while in jail that menu sounds very familiar to what ROK Army Soldiers eat from my experience:

With former President Yoon Suk Yeol and his wife Kim Keon Hee being held in separate Seoul detention centers, public curiosity has zeroed in on the couple’s daily life behind bars — particularly their meals.

According to the monthly meal plan from correctional authorities, Yoon is expected to have a 1,730 won ($1.25) jail meal consisting of beef and vegetable porridge with steamed potatoes for Wednesday’s breakfast.

The Justice Ministry revealed that three meals are provided per day for every inmate at the Seoul detention center, budgeted at 5,201 won. This amounts to approximately 1,730 won per meal.

Meals for lunch and dinner are served in a traditional Korean style, with rice, soup, side dishes and kimchi. The detained former president, who has been in custody at the Seoul Detention Center in Uiwang, Gyeonggi Province, since July 10, is scheduled to have braised chicken with seasoned dried seaweed and stew with soft tofu for Wednesday’s lunch and dinner, respectively.

Meanwhile, sliced white bread with strawberry jam, salad and sausage are available for the former first lady’s breakfast on Wednesday, according to the Korea Correctional Service.

Kim will have pork kimchi stew with sweet and sour dumplings for lunch, like any other inmate at the Seoul Southern Detention Center. Wednesday’s dinner will be chilled cucumber and seaweed soup with rice and kimchi. Kim’s attorneys have relayed to media that she has not been eating well.

The inmates are provided with nutritious meals totaling over 2,500 calories per day. No outside food is allowed.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

This doesn’t look good for Kim Keon-hee if this true when combined with the prior handbag from hell allegations:

In 2022, during a Korean community dinner in Madrid, where she accompanied the former president on his NATO-related travels, Kim wore a Van Cleef & Arpels necklace valued at over 60 million won ($43,300) that was absent from her official asset disclosure. At the time, the presidential office said it had been “borrowed from an acquaintance.”

However, in May, Kim submitted a written statement to prosecutors claiming it was a replica and therefore not subject to disclosure under the public official asset reporting rules.

That alibi unraveled this month when Seohee Construction Chairman Lee Bong-kwan confessed to giving her the necklace in exchange for helping his son-in-law find a job in the Yoon administration. 

Last month, the special counsel found a replica of the same model at the home of Kim’s elder brother’s mother-in-law. Prosecutors later brought both the genuine necklace — recovered from Seohee Construction — and the replica into court, using the contrast to challenge Kim’s account. They argued that the presence of the fake suggested a deliberate attempt to mislead investigators, a charge her defense has so far been unable to disprove. (…….)

Investigators also found a Vacheron Constantin watch box and an authenticity certificate during a search last month. The special counsel suspects the watch came from a businessman surnamed Seo, a major donor to Yoon, whose robotics firm later won a contract with the Presidential Security Service to provide a robot dog for patrol and surveillance. They are examining possible links between the gift and that deal.

Seo reportedly told prosecutors he met Kim in 2022 and bought her the watch after she expressed interest, claiming he could get it at a discount as a VIP and that she reimbursed him in cash.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Cho Kuk and his family must have been cheering when they heard this news:

Former first lady Kim Keon Hee has been arrested on charges of involvement in a stock manipulation scheme, election meddling and bribery, making her and her husband, former President Yoon Suk Yeol, the first former presidential couple to be detained simultaneously.

The Seoul Central District Court issued an arrest warrant against her late Tuesday, citing concerns she could destroy evidence, after special counsel Min Joong-ki’s team requested it last week on charges of violating the Capital Market Act, the Political Funds Act and a law on the acceptance of bribes for mediation.

During Tuesday’s hearing prior to her arrest, special prosecutors emphasized the risks of her destroying evidence, while her lawyers argued he had cooperated with questioning and was in poor health.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The plan for Cho Kuk’s revenge gets closer to completion:

A special counsel team requested an arrest warrant for former first lady Kim Keon Hee on Thursday, a day after questioning her over allegations of election meddling and other irregularities.

Special counsel Min Joong-ki’s team said it filed for the warrant on charges of violations of the Capital Market Act, the Political Funds Act and a law on the acceptance of bribes for mediation.

“We requested it upon determining that the criteria for an arrest warrant were met,” assistant special counsel Oh Jeong-hee said during a press briefing.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is a bizarre murder that happened recently in Incheon:

A man shot and killed his son with a homemade gun during a birthday party he threw for his father, police said Monday.

The 63-year-old shooter was detained without a warrant early Monday after police were alerted to a shooting at an apartment in Incheon, west of Seoul, at 9:31 p.m. Sunday.

The man is suspected of firing two shots at his son in his 30s during the party, which was also attended by his daughter-in-law, his two grandchildren and friends, police said. The motive behind the suspect’s shooting was not known.

The gun was in pipe-form and the bullets hit the son’s chest. He was moved to a hospital but later pronounced dead.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Not a good look in regards to whatever was going on here:

A special counsel team said Wednesday it has launched an investigation into allegations surrounding a close acquaintance of former first lady Kim Keon Hee.

The team led by special counsel Min Joong-ki said the woman, surnamed Kim and known as the former first lady’s “stewardess,” left the country in April and has not returned.

The woman is suspected of having received 18 billion won (US$13 million) in investments from businesses through irregular means.

“We confirmed that she transferred the addresses of her office and family members,” assistant special counsel Moon Hong-ju said during a press briefing. “We plan to take steps, including invalidating her passport.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It will be interesting to see how this turns out:

Three Iranian nationals — two athletes and one coach — participating in the 2025 Asian Athletics Championships in Gumi, North Gyeongsang Province, have been arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting a Korean woman.

According to police, a report was filed around 7 a.m. Saturday, stating that a woman in her 20s had been sexually assaulted at a hotel in Gumi.

Police responded and arrested two athletes in their 30s and one coach at the hotel.

Initial investigations suggest the suspects met the victim at a bar near the athletes’ village in Gumi before taking her to a hotel, where the alleged assault occurred.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.