Category: crime & punishment

I am glad the Korean authorities caught these two because I can’t stand people who steal or leave graffiti everywhere:

Police have arrested two Russians for allegedly vandalizing subway cars in Daegu and stealing clothes from department stores in Seoul and Busan.

Daegu Dongbu Police Station said on Monday that the two men, 22 and 20, allegedly painted the word “ONAS” — meaning “we” in Russian — on two subway cars at a depot in the city’s Dong-gu district around 1:40 a.m. on Oct. 16.

A Daegu department store employee reported the men to police.

After analyzing CCTV footage, police discovered that the graffiti suspects were wanted by Busan Jungbu Police Station on a charge of stealing clothes worth 7.5 million won ($6,620) from department stores in Seoul and Busan on Oct. 11 and 12, respectively.

According to Daegu police, the Russians stole the clothes and vandalized the subway cars “for fun.” [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

The stupid things drunk people do:

Rescuers have removed an inebriated woman from a claw crane game for dolls after she crawled into the game machine’s exit following frustration over her failure to get any dolls from it, firefighters said Tuesday.

The woman, 20, got herself confined inside the machine in the city of Incheon, west of Seoul, around 4:00 a.m. on Monday before being rescued. Rescuers, who were mobilized to the scene after receiving a tip from one of her acquaintances, cut through the machine’s cabinet with a motor drill.

After failing to pick up a doll in several attempts, she managed to enter the machine through its opening with a length and width of just 30 centimeters, but was unable to get back out, they said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Here is a really odd story of a gunfight in Seoul with a criminal using six homemade guns.  This just goes to show that if a criminal really wants a gun they can get one:

A police officer was killed in a gunfight with a criminal suspect in northern Seoul and the suspect involved in the shooting has been apprehended, law enforcement authorities said Wednesday.

In the gunfight that began at around 6:30 p.m. in front of a tunnel near Beon-dong in northern Seoul, the 45-year-old suspect, identified only by his family name Seong, opened fire with a privately manufactured gun, according to the police.

The police responded to a report that the suspect had attacked his neighbor with a blunt object. He ran into the tunnel after he spotted the police and was carrying six guns, all made of wood, when he was apprehended, a police officer said.

The suspect is presumed to have made the wooden guns based on manufacturing methods available from the Internet.

The suspect cut off an electronic monitoring bracelet that he was wearing due to previous involvement in a sexual offense before he began to run towards the tunnel, the officer said.

A police officer, 54, was shot in the gunfight and was rushed to the hospital for treatment, but died during surgery. The neighbor who was attacked, who also turns out to be the suspect’s landlord, is undergoing treatment for his wounds.

The landlord and the tenant were engaged in an argument before he became violent. The police have begun an investigation into what caused the verbal fight.  [Yonhap via a reader tip]

Here is the back story on the three Koreans that were found murdered in the Philippines:

Three Korean victims found earlier this week in a remote sugarcane field in the Philippines with gunshot wounds to their heads were identified as primary suspects in a multi-million-dollar investment fraud, local media reported Friday.

The three Koreans were found dead by a local farmer on Tuesday in a sugarcane field in the rural town of Bacolor, 75 kilometers (47 miles) northwest of Manila.

They were a 48-year-old man, a 52-year-old man and a 49-year-old woman. The victims were confirmed by their fingerprints to be Korean nationals on Wednesday.

The Korean police told local media on Friday that the three victims were suspects of an investment fraud worth 15 billion won ($13.25 million).

The three individuals left the country before police formally launched an investigation, the Yonhap News Agency reported.

The victims were executives in an investment corporation that they created last year, and the 48-year-old male victim worked as its president.

They jointly operated the company for approximately one year, using a multi-level marketing investment scheme based on foreign exchange margin trading, police were quoted as saying.

While the president of the firm and the female victim were not married, they pretended to be, police said, luring investors to trust them with large sums of money with the promise of high returns.

Victims of the alleged fraud requested police since the summer to investigate the suspects. One petition was filed at the Songpa District Precinct in August and two more were filed to the Suseo District Precinct in September.

Police said the victims left Korea as the investigation was forming.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but I wonder if they were working for a Korean organized crime group and killing them was a way to keep them quiet after they were targeted to be investigated by authorities?

Further reading:

https://www.rokdrop.net/2016/10/three-more-south-koreans-found-murdered-in-the-philippines/

The police on Jeju have launched a crackdown on Chinese tourists due to them committing 95% of petty crime by foreigners on Jeju island:

In downtown Jeju on Sunday night, booming sounds echoed down the streets as three drunken Chinese men pounded on a video arcade in front of a game room. A few passing women were so startled they let out shouts of surprise, but the men only kept on whooping loudly.

“After a Korean woman was murdered in a cathedral in Jeju,” said Park Soo-jung, a 32-year-old resident of Jeju, “seeing big Chinese men scares me.”

On Sept. 22 in Yeon-dong of Jeju, an area often crowded with Chinese visitors, police officers tried to prevent two Chinese tourists from jaywalking.

“Do not jaywalk!” the officers called out to them in Mandarin Chinese.

One of them, a 42-year-old Chinese man surnamed Ma, reportedly answered, “Why are you picking on us when everyone else is jaywalking?”

Ma was charged 20,000 won ($18.26) for breaking the law. He was just one of about 40 found jaywalking within two hours in downtown Jeju.

“After the cathedral incident, we’ve heightened the crackdown against crimes committed by Chinese tourists,” said Kim Chang-hyun, head of a local police team in Jeju. “Once the sun sets, I start worrying what kind of crimes committed by Chinese tourists I’ll be seeing that night.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

This is just a horrible story coming out of Pocheon, north of Seoul:

A middle-aged couple was arrested Sunday for allegedly binding their 6-year-old adopted daughter with duct tape for 17 hours and, when she suffocated, burning her body on a mountain.

The couple denied intentionally killing the girl and said she was being punished for being “too gluttonous.”

Police requested a pre-trial detention warrant Monday for the 47-year-old man and his 30-year-old wife on charges of murder, physical abuse, as well as the mutilation and abandonment of a dead body.

A 19-year-old woman living with the couple in Pocheon, Gyeonggi, was also apprehended on the same charges. Police identified the teenager as a daughter of the father’s close friend, who allegedly took some – if not equal – part in the crime.

The three suspects said during police questioning that they habitually struck the child with their bare hands or a fly swatter because she didn’t obey orders.

Last Wednesday night, they allegedly bound the girl up with duct tape and left home, returning 17 hours later to find her struggling to breathe.

The adoptive mother claimed she performed CPR on the child before she took her last breath. The three moved the body to the couple’s car Friday and drove to a nearby mountain. They allegedly burned the body to hide the evidence.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more of the details at the link, to include how the police determined the adopted parents killed the girl.

I wonder if this would be like the joint patrols the US military and the ROK police conduct near US military bases?:

South Korea and China will discuss the possibility of stationing Chinese police officials on its southern island of Jeju if the relevant authorities here consider it necessary, Seoul’s foreign ministry said Thursday.

The idea was raised by a South Korean opposition lawmaker earlier this week amid an increase in crimes by Chinese tourists on the popular resort island.

“The issue of stationing Chinese police (on Jeju) will be actively discussed with China after talks with our relevant departments, including the police, and if they so wish,” the ministry said. “Even if the Chinese police are stationed here, they would not be involved in our public safety activities, but only work with us in terms of sharing information on criminals and cooperating on safety issues.”  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Further Reading:

https://www.rokdrop.net/2016/09/should-south-korea-end-visa-waiver-program-for-jeju-island/

There is a lesson to be learned here, don’t except drinks from strange people you just met:

Police have arrested a man for allegedly drugging a Uzbekistani women and dragging her to a Busan motel to rob her.

Police said that on Sept 13, the man, surnamed Kang, 35, approached the victim at a bus station in Oncheon-dong. He had a vending machine coffee that contained zolpidem, a sedative primarily used for insomnia.

He introduced himself to the woman as a Japanese living in Korea. Kang told police he talked with her for about an hour before giving her the coffee. After the woman fell asleep, he dragged her to a nearby hotel and stole her belongings, including a gold bracelet, police said.

Kang also allegedly stole about 10 million won ($9,060) from 12 other victims using a similar method.

Police arrested Kang at a motel in the area after going through security camera footage. [Korea Times]

This crazy leftist should be happy he only received 12 years for his attempted murder of US Ambassador Mark Lippert:

The Korean man who attacked U.S. Ambassador Mark Lippert with a knife last year was sentenced to 12 years in prison for attempted murder by the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

The top court convicted 56-year-old Kim Ki-jong, who slashed the ambassador with a knife during a forum in Seoul on March 5, 2015, for attempted murder, assaulting a foreign envoy and obstruction of duty.

“It is appropriate to uphold the lower court ruling that though it was not completed, he had the intention to murder,” the court said, “taking into consideration the details of the crime and his motive, weapon of choice, the size of the knife and usage, magnitude of the attack, as well as the area attacked and its repetitiveness.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Further Reading:

https://www.rokdrop.net/2015/03/attacker-contacted-a-north-korean-spy-prior-to-slashing-of-us-ambassador/

Here is an update in regards to one of the recent stories of senior military officers getting themselves in serious trouble.  This was the case that was going to be interesting going to trial because his lawyer was using the defense that the adultery regulation in the UCMJ is unfair because it only applies to heterosexual couples.  It would have been interesting to see how that defense would have played out which now we will never know:

The Air Force says a high-ranking officer who was charged with rape has been found dead in his off-base Colorado home.

Colorado Springs police Sgt. Tim Stanke says officers responded to a report of a suicide when they found the body of Col. Eugene Caughey on Sunday. Stanke says police are awaiting autopsy results.

The 46-year-old Caughey had been vice commander of the 50th Space Wing at Schriever Air Force Base outside Colorado Springs. The unit operates key military satellite systems.

Caughey was charged with adultery, indecent filming or photography, dereliction of duty and conduct unbecoming an officer.

Caughey is accused of raping a woman at Schriever Air Force Base, also in Colorado, in late 2014 or early 2015 while “holding her against the wall and floor using physical strength or violence,” court documents stated.

Prosecutors also accused him of photographing his exposed genitals while in uniform and groping women twice.

His court-martial was scheduled for Oct. 17.  [CBS News]

You can read more at the link.