Tag: crime

With so many people turning up missing you would think this guy would have become motivated to do his job. Hopefully he ends up spending time in jail for this to send a message to other lazy policemen:

A police officer, center, who was detained on charges including dereliction of duty and forging public electronic records, is transferred to the prosecution at Jeju Dongbu Police Station in Jeju City, Tuesday. Yonhap

The Jeju Provincial Police said Tuesday that an officer who prematurely closed multiple missing person cases on the island admitted to closing them to avoid the extra workload involved in keeping the cases open.

The controversy erupted after it emerged that the officer had closed the missing person case of Jang Mi-ran, a 37-year-old woman missing for months, without confirming her whereabouts. Last week, police said they had removed all four officers in the chain of command at Jeju Seobu Police Station from their duties, pending an investigation.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

I wonder what is causing a rise in crime on Jeju? 🤔

The concentration of cases, and the local police’s failures surrounding some of them, has unsettled residents and visitors alike.

“Many people come to Jeju to stay for several months at a time. I’ve heard that some tenants are canceling their leases following the recent incidents.” a Jeju resident surnamed Cho, who runs a short-term rental business, wrote on Instagram. (…….)

Tourism businesses in Jeju are particularly on edge as the island is already grappling with a decline in domestic visitors.

According to the Jeju Tourism Organization, 963,401 domestic travelers visited the island in July, down 12.4 percent, or 136,620, from 1,100,021 a year earlier. It marked the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020 that Jeju’s monthly domestic visitor count fell below 1 million.

The downward trend continued into August. From Aug. 1-23, Jeju received an average of 35,295 domestic visitors per day, about 300 fewer than the 35,575 recorded during the same period last year.

According to data from the Korean National Police Agency, the island recorded the country’s highest crime rate in 2024, at 4,539.6 crimes per 100,000 people. The rate is calculated based on Jeju’s resident population of around 663,000, while the island receives millions of visitors each year.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

It will see if the premature closing of the missing person cases was nefarious or just laziness on the investigator:

 A police officer suspected of closing a missing person case without confirming the woman’s safety has been placed under emergency arrest, police said Sunday.

The officer was detained without a warrant the previous day on suspicion of dereliction of duty, falsifying official electronic records, and obstruction of official duties through deceptive means, according to the Jeju Provincial Police Agency.

The emergency arrest was made after the officer was found to have closed another missing person case prematurely, revealed through the discovery of the man’s body on Saturday.

The missing woman, 37-year-old Jang Mi-ran, has yet to be found, more than three months after she was initially reported missing by her family.

In both cases, the police officer is suspected of arbitrarily closing them after telling the families that the missing people were safe.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is definitely a danger of publicly trying to predict stocks, that someone will blame you personally for losses:

A man in his 20s was arrested by police in Busan on suspicion of attacking a stock investment YouTuber with a weapon. Investigations revealed he harbored resentment after suffering losses from investments he made based solely on the YouTuber’s advice.

The Busan Nambu Police Station announced on the 14th that it had detained a man in his 20s, identified as Mr. A, on charges of attempted murder.

Mr. A is accused of stabbing a man in his 40s, identified as Mr. B, multiple times with a weapon around 8:09 a.m. on the 13th at a commercial building in Busan’s Nam District before fleeing the scene.

Mr. B was reportedly a stock investment YouTuber. Mr. A, a subscriber to Mr. B’s YouTube channel, allegedly acted on revenge after incurring significant losses from investments made solely based on Mr. B’s recommendations.

Chosun Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

This criminal case is just totally bizarre, basically some woman keeps getting pregnant by some foreign guy and keeps convincing her Korean husband the kid is his. This guy appears to be the ultimate simp:

A Korean couple who abandoned two infants nearly two decades ago because they “looked like foreigners” received suspended prison sentences, according to legal circles Sunday.

The Uijeongbu District Court sentenced the mother to 18 months in prison, suspended for three years, for violating the Child Welfare Act. Her husband was sentenced to one year in prison, suspended for three years, for the same charge.

According to the court, the woman gave birth to her first child in 2005 while living with the man in Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province.

The man, who believed throughout the pregnancy that he was the child’s biological father, realized after the birth that the baby was biracial. Concluding the child was not his, he decided to abandon the infant, and the mother complied.

The couple left the newborn on the doorstep of an orphanage in northern Gyeonggi Province less than a month after the birth.

The two reunited in 2008. The woman was pregnant with another child fathered by a foreign man, but the man once again believed he was the biological father.

After the couple legally married, the woman gave birth in a makeshift shed on a farm owned by the man’s parents. They raised the child for about a year.

As the child grew older, however, the man again realized the child was not biologically his.

Fearing confrontation, the woman fled in March 2009, leaving the child behind. The man subsequently abandoned the second child at the doorstep of the same orphanage.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

This is a horrible murder and cover up that has put the ruling party’s attempt to take investigation powers away from prosecutors at risk:

Acting National Police Agency Commissioner Yoo Jae-seong sits down for a meeting at the agency’s office in Seodaemun District, Seoul, Friday. Yonhap

The murder of a high school student in Gwangjuand an alleged cover-up attempt by police have abruptly disrupted a policy push to strip prosecutors of all remaining investigative powers. The killing by Jang Yoon-gi, son of a police officer, has raised the question of whether Korea should press ahead with institutionalizing unchecked police power at the very moment its dangers have been laid bare.

A special investigation team under the National Police Agency probing the alleged misconduct in the investigation of the murder case visited the office of the Gwangju Metropolitan Police’s commissioner and other top command posts to collect evidence, expanding its inquiry to the police leadership.

This came after investigators named the chief of Gwangsan Police Station in the city, the leader of the violent crimes team and his members as criminal suspects. The team leader was arrested last week on charges including leaking official secrets and destroying evidence. Investigators are also probing Jang’s father — himself suspected of destroying key evidence — on suspicion of colluding with the local police investigation team.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

In Korea it can be illegal to operate a porn site as these people have just found out:

Korean police arrested 15 people linked to an online pornography site with more than 6,000 members, accusing its operators and users of distributing hundreds of sexually explicit photos and videos, police said Friday.

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency’s cyber investigation unit said it booked eight operators of the site, called Honors Club, on charges of distributing obscene materials in violation of the Information and Communications Network Act. Seven site members were also arrested on the same charge. (……)

The operators are accused of running the site from January 2022 through April 2026 and uploading or allowing the distribution of about 700 explicit photos and videos, including footage of group sexual activity among members, according to police.

The site presented itself as a community for married couples and partners seeking open relationships. However, police said its operators used the platform to circulate sexually explicit content and recruit members through multiple online channels, including a Daum cafe, Telegram channels and chat rooms, and an account on X.

The site had 6,325 members, while related online groups drew 2,361 members on Daum cafe, 736 users on a Telegram channel, 944 participants in a Telegram chat room and 6,214 followers on X, police said.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

This was a long time coming and a well deserved punishment that hopefully acts as a deterrent to all the other idiot social media influencers looking to act the fool in South Korea:

American YouTuber Johnny Somali, who sparked outrage in South Korea two years ago after kissing a statue symbolizing Korean victims of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery, was sentenced by a court Wednesday to six months in prison and remanded in custody.

Somali was indicted by South Korean authorities on multiple charges, including obstruction of business and violations of minor public order laws.

He is accused of uploading a video of himself kissing a “Statue of Peace” that commemorates the former sex slaves in Seoul and performing a lewd dance in front of it in October 2024. He also provoked public outrage by causing disturbances on buses, subways and an amusement park, vandalizing a convenience store in Seoul’s Mapo district and playing obscene videos in public.

The Seoul Western District Court sentenced Somali to six months in prison and 20 days of detention and barred him from employment at institutions related to children and adolescents for five years.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It is pretty amazing that with everything going on in Korea and the world that the top story currently over at Yonhap’s English page is of a bar fight in Hongdae involving an American Soldier:

An American soldier was booked Sunday for allegedly assaulting a South Korean man at a nightclub in Seoul’s Hongdae district, police said.

The 20-something member of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) was apprehended at the scene after allegedly assaulting the man around 3 a.m. on Saturday, according to the Mapo Police Station.

The altercation reportedly began after the victim bumped shoulders with the soldier’s party and resulted in him sustaining a fractured nose.

The soldier was transferred to the USFK in accordance with the Status of Forces Agreement, which governs the legal status of the 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea.

Police said they will decide on the next steps after determining the details of the incident.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but I can remember the days when incidents like this would lead to massive protests due to lies about the SOFA agreement. Fortunately those days appear to be long gone.

This is just a truly weird case and I can only imagine the shock of his command team had when thy had to deal with this:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces in Washington, D.C.

The military’s highest court has upheld the dismissal of a case involving an airman who said he performed sexual acts with a childlike silicone doll in the privacy of his dorm room. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces on Monday affirmed the judgment of the Air Force criminal appeals court, which ruled that Airman Zachary Rocha’s conduct was constitutionally protected.

In the court’s majority opinion, justices wrote they lacked the authority to make their own findings of fact and reviewed an appeals’ court decision for the application of “correct legal principles.” The high court wrote that it was not sure another review by the Air Force appeals court was justified, stating justices answered the most important question when they “stated Rocha had a constitutionally protected liberty interest to privately engage in sexual activities with his doll,” according to court papers.

But in a scathing dissent from the majority, the court’s top judge warned the decision lowers the legal threshold for deviant behavior among personnel and sends a message that the U.S. military’s justice system accepts “the unabashed sexualization of children.” “And so,” wrote Chief Judge Keith Ohlson, “hundreds of thousands of servicemembers who serve in the Air Force and Space Force are now authorized to penetrate … child sex dolls while on base and at their leisure. “ (……..)

Rocha admitted to purchasing a silicone sex doll, described in court filings as being about 4 feet tall with female prepubescent features. It was discovered in his room about three weeks after he bought the doll during an on-base dormitory inspection. Those who saw the clothed doll on Rocha’s bed said they were startled by its lifelike appearance, according to court documents.

An Air Force investigator testified in 2021 that he “saw a doll that scared (him) because it kind of looked like a child,” according to court filings. Rocha told investigators he benefited emotionally from the doll, whom he named Adele. He also said he engaged in sexual acts with the doll but denied having sexual interest in children, court papers state. Rocha said he stopped his sexual activity when realizing the doll looked childlike, according to court documents.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but I think the way the military can handle this is just issue a sweeping policy letter that forbids these child sex dolls in the barracks.