Category: crime & punishment

The AAFES commander Major General Essex has vowed to prosecute thoughs involved in the SSRT corruption scandal:

Garza said Air Force Maj. Gen. Paul W. Essex, AAFES commander, “has given our general counsel the authority and the guidance to prosecute violators that have gone and broken our public trust and our customers’ trust, and to prosecute them to the furthest extent.”

Also, he said, “I’m sure that General Essex would not allow a company that has violated the trust” of our customers “to continue to operate for us.”

SSRT on the other hand is claiming everything is hunky dory:

An SSRT official said his Internet and phone service company can do more to improve service to U.S. military customers on the peninsula, but denied its prices are out of line and that its service is substandard.

Justin Ryu, business administration division manager for Samsung Rental Corp. Ltd., or SSRT, also said the company does not exploit the fact that most USFK customers are transient. Rather, he said, SSRT works hard to fix service problems in a timely manner and considers the schedules and working conditions of U.S. military customers.

Really?  Tell that to all the soldiers and airman getting screwed by your corrupt company.  The Stars and Stripes really nailed it with this information:

Here is a list of SSRT’s monthly prices for Internet service on various U.S. military installations in South Korea :

• Cable modem service, $41, available at all installations except Osan and Kunsan air bases.
  
• At Osan and Kunsan air bases, DSL service is $39.95.

At Osan, dial-up Internet is also available, for $13.90 per month.

Web sites for several leading South Korea telecommunications companies showed the following monthly rates (converted from won to dollars) for basic Internet service:

• Korea Telecom Corp.: ADSL service with no contract, $32; for contracts that range from one to three years, $26.69 to $29.90.
  
• Hanaro Telecom Inc.: DSL without contract, $29.90; for contracts of one to three years, $26.91 to $29.
  
• Powercomm: Basic DSL without contract, $31.50; for contracts of one to three years, $26.69 to $29.92.

I’m fairly confident the US authorites will send the corrupt AAFES employees to jail, but will anything be done by the Korean authorities to punish the corrupt SSRT officials?  I seriously doubt it.  Corrupt businessmen are nothing new in Korea and ripping off USFK isn’t really considered a big deal by many Koreans because they figure the Americans are rich anyway.  At least the corrupt AAFES officials will at least get punished. 

Here is an update on last year’s sexual ass assault case involving a 2nd Infantry Divison MP.  Talk about a stupid criminal:

A soldier struck a 21-year-old South Korea woman with a frying pan, then fled in his underwear after unlawfully entering her apartment, according to testimony in Uijeongbu district court on Friday.

Pfc. Jordan Nelson, 19, of the 55th Military Police Company, is charged with assault and attempted rape after entering the unlocked apartment at about 2 a.m. on Oct. 22. He disputed the tearful woman’s claims that he got in bed with her but admitted striking her with the pan.

When the woman began screaming, Nelson left his clothing and dog tags behind, according to testimony.

Is it just me or do MPs make the stupidest criminals?  In my time in the Army I have seen MPs get busted for stupid incidents.  I’m not saying that MPs commit more incidents than anyone else, but it sure seems like when they do get in trouble they commit the stupidest incidents.  You would think MPs would be more clever in covering their tracks.  Even the Air Force has MPs that just leave me wondering what the heck were they thinking?

This has the makings of being quite a fine marriage.  Soldier throws a cantelope at and beats his wife after she gambles away all his rent and utility money. 

Nomad is all over the latest update on the SSRT corruption scandal in Osan:

South Korean authorities contend H. Lee Holloway and Clifton W. Choy received thousands of dollars in bribes from the chief executive of Samsung Rental Corp. Ltd., also known as SSRT, which provides Internet and phone service to numerous installations. South Korean criminal authorities say SSRT executive Jeong Gi-hwan bribed Choy with $100,000 to help win the contract and later bribed Holloway with $68,000 to help head off possible adverse actions by the Army and Air Force Exchange Service over mounting customer complaints of alleged price gouging and poor service. The alleged bribes were in cash plus paid entertainment at South Korean bars, restaurants and other venues, said a South Korean law enforcement official familiar with the case. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity. Among the venues were golf courses and “room salons,” typically pricey parlors where customers are assigned private rooms and paired with attractive young hostesses who devote their attention to them while drinks and food are served. In addition, authorities say Jeong picked up the tab for a two-day golfing trip he took with Holloway in May 2003 to Korea’s Cheju Island, authorities said.

What an absolute disgrace these people are.  Willing to screw over thousands of soldiers for a few thousand dollars and trips to the salon parlor.  I don’t understand how these people can live with themselves knowingly screwing over soldiers.  They will get their day in court and if found guilty they need to be locked up to the fullest extent of the law.

The hypocrisy of the response to this incident when compared to the 2002 US military tracked vehicle accident that killed two South Korean junior high students is so obvious:

A court has upheld a decision to cancel the driving license of a South Korean citizen who killed one soldier and wounded two while driving under the influence in North Korea.

The Seoul Administration Court Thursday ruled against a man identified as Chung, who filed a suit against the Seoul Police Agency chief after his license was canceled. Chung, an employee with a subcontractor of Hyundai Asan, was prosecuted in July this year and sentenced to one year in jail with a two-year stay of execution. He killed and injured three North Korean soldiers in Mt. Kumgang while driving a passenger car in December last year.

In the event of a car accident at Mt. Kumgang and Kaesong Industrial Complex, North Korea has investigation rights over the case and South Korea decides on the punishment, according to the Justice Ministry¿s directives. The bench affirmed that the cancellation of Chung¿s driver¿s license was right, given that he drank immediately before the accident and drove at an inappropriately fast speed, although the victims could be blamed to some extent.

In the 2002 accident, the two soldiers involved were not speeding, were not drunk, and committed a legitimate accident that unfortunately killed the two girls.  Candle light protests, demands that the SOFA be changed so the US soldiers could be sent to Korean jail, violent protests including the infiltration and storming of Camp Red Cloud in Uijongbu, the kidnapping of US soldiers from a subway, stabbing of the USFK public relations spokesman, banning of Americans from many restaurants and businesses, along with ultimately President Roh Moo-hyun being elected by running on a anti-American platform followed this tragic accident.

Now compare the 2002 accident to the above incident.  A South Korean man kills one person and injures two others while speeding and driving drunk and complains because his license is taken away.  No candle light vigils and no calls for justice from the Korean people and not even a stiff jail sentence from the government.  I’m willing to bet the average Korean probably doesn’t even know about this incident.

The greatest hypocrisy has got to be the SOFA agreement with North Korea that the South Koreans have.  Under the US SOFA agreement a soldier on duty cannot be tried by a Korean court such as what happened in the 2002 accident.  Only soldiers who commit crimes while off duty can be tried by a Korean court which has happened since the 1960’s.  The US SOFA is something of continuous complaints from many quarters of Korean society but yet the SOFA they have with North Korea allows a South Korean civilian driving around drunk to be tried in a South Korean court where he ends up losing his license?

Well at least he got more punishment than when a Korean civilian rapes a US soldier.  In that case no one received any punishment at all.

This is like something out of a low budget Korean crime flick:

A 26-year-old male IT employee known as Lee, enjoyed working alongside a 32-year-old woman identified as Park, and the pair began dating back in 2004. They were on again off again for a while, but in July of this year, Park confessed to being three months pregnant. Lee was in shock, as for the past two months he’d been seeing another woman secretly and had even promised to marry her. Lee asked Park to get an abortion, but she refused, leaving him in a deep hole. It was then that he decided having Park murdered was his best option and took up the search to find a willing hit-man on the Internet in October. Lee found the required serviceman and wrote him an email explaining that he should “Kidnap her and bury her in secret.” If the job was carried out successfully, the agreed price was W11million (US$1=W930). Lee borrowed W12 million from his new girlfriend telling her that he had his reasons.

However the hit man had a heart, and instead of executing the plan, he called Park and told her the whole story. The two put their heads together and came up with a plan of their own that would trick Lee into believing Park had indeed been killed. Park returned home and poured red dye on newspapers to resemble horrific blood shed, took a photo with her cell phone and sent it to the hired killer. With picture in hand the hit-man showed Lee that business had been taken care of and received his money as per their agreement. After getting an abortion, Park reported the incident to the police. Bangbae Police Station, Seoul, issued an arrest warrant for Lee Thursday and is in pursuit of the hired killer, who is still on the run.

This hitman sounds more like a clever conman.

Remember the SSRT Corruption Scandal down in Osan? Well here is a update in the S&S on the criminal proceedings:

South Korean court officials postponed a scheduled Friday hearing for a telecommunications executive accused of bribing U.S. military officials in return for a multimillion-dollar Internet service contract.

Officials said the trial was postponed because defense lawyers said they still hadn’t received documents from the Army and Air Force Exchange Service needed to defend their client.

Jeong Gi-hwnan, 40, an executive with Samsung Rental Telecommunications (SSRT), was to appear at 2 p.m. Friday, according to the court. As of late Friday, no date had been set for his next court appearance.

To tell you the truth I’m really not to worked up about this guy getting sent to jail for a long time because afterall he was just conducting business the Korean way which often features bribes, kickbacks, and trips to the salon parlor. Who I am really pissed off at is the leadership that allows this crap to happen by accepting these bribes that ultimately leads to service that screws the soldiers and airman of USFK. The S&S article briefly mentioned that the two contracting officers involved with the bribes remain under investigation. Hopefully they go the way of COL Moran.

Here is something that is no shocker to those of us who have spent plenty of time in USFK:

One man is in custody and three more face charges in connection with a black-marketing operation that was being run out of an Army and Air Force Exchange Service store at Camp Long, near Wonju, South Korea, authorities said Wednesday.

The case was a result of a yearlong investigation and involved more than 21,000 cases of beer from AAFES, according to Kim Jong-mu, a Seoul-based South Korean customs officer who is the case’s senior investigator.

The duty-free beer was driven off base in a U.S. government vehicle and sold to middlemen, who in turn resold it on the South Korean market, he said.

The four suspects in the case were AAFES employees, he said.

AAFES employees are really the brains behind the black marketing scams in Korea. Here is how these criminals have been pulling off their scam:

The 21,300 cases of beer believed to have been smuggled over the past year was valued at 700 million won, or about $750,000. Kim said investigators believe the suspects have been involved in black marketing for many years.

The Camp Long smuggling was done by loading cases into a vehicle with USFK plates and driving the beer to a middleman waiting off base in an identical vehicle with South Korean license plates, Kim said. Then the plates were switched and the beer was delivered to liquor merchants in Seoul’s Namdaemun Market, he said.

They black marketed $750,000 in just beer, imagine how much they are making from Spam, ox tails, and other popular food items as well. I’m willing to be their black marketing ring was bringing in close to $1 million a year and they have been getting away with this for years. This is a huge amount of money and this is just from Camp Long.

Maybe if Cindy Sheehan had shown up a few weeks earlier she could have gotten this guy to sign her in on post and they could of eaten Taco Bell together:

An Army private will serve 10 months in jail for using a friend’s debit card 23 times to buy fast food, a general court-martial ruled Tuesday.

Pvt. Walter B. Wade Jr., of the 2nd Infantry Division’s 1st Battalion, 43rd Air Defense Artillery, Echo Company, must forfeit all pay, was reduced in rank to E-1 and will receive a bad-conduct discharge.

That ended up being some expensive Taco Bell for this soldier.

Former USFK soldier and convicted murderer Kenneth Markle who was just recently released from ROK prison, has apparently spoken out over at Lost Nomad proclaiming his innocence in the 1992 murder of Korean prostitute Kum E. Yoon. This murder is the most brutal as well as the most publicly known murder by a US servicemember in Korea and has long been used by anti-US groups to influence public opinion against USFK in Korea.

I can remember a few years back being in charge of a force protection detail at Camp Red Cloud when my soldiers working the front gate called me to come to the gate. I went to the gate and the typical anti-US loons were out there with signs with the murdered body of Ms. Yoon on it as well as the crushed bodies of the two girls killed in the 2002 armored vehicle accident. That was the first time I had ever seen pictures of the brutal murder, that even years after it happened are still sickenly used for political reasons.

Markle says he didn’t do it and we would be surprised if we read the court transcripts. Well then he should scan post them on a webpage and let us with interest in the case read them. He is the one convicted for the murder and thus the burden of proof is on him to prove he is innocent.

———————————————————————————-

Note: An updated posting about this case can be read at the below link:

• GI Flashbacks: The 1992 Private Kenneth Markle Murder Case