Tag: Gangnam

Never accept drinks from random people you meet no matter the setting:

A 49-year-old woman has been arrested on charges of handing over drinks spiked with drugs to random high school students in Seoul after duping them into believing they were good for concentration, police said Wednesday.

At least six reports were made of students exhibiting abnormal symptoms after drinking beverages given to them by a group of people in Gangnam Ward, southern Seoul, on Monday night, according to Gangnam Police Station. 

Police said the suspect, whose identity has been withheld, allegedly handed over the drinks with three other accomplices in areas where there are many private tutoring academies for students, known as hagwon.

An investigation revealed that the bottles contained methamphetamine, and false labels were attached claiming that they were intended to improve memory and concentration.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but it seems this group was simply trying to get these kids hooked on meth so they can keep selling it to them.

Seems pretty extreme to murder someone over a $61,000 investment loss in cryptocurrency considering how volatile everyone should know by now investing in crypto is:

Three people were arrested on Monday in suspected connection with the recent murder of a 48-year-old woman who lived in Seoul’s Gangnam District. 

Judge Yoo Chang-hoon at the Seoul Central District Court said the decision was made to grant warrants for their arrests “due to concerns they are flight risks or could try to destroy evidence.”

According to police, the three were suspected of conspiring to force the woman into a vehicle in front of an apartment complex in Yeoksam-dong in Seoul’s Gangnam District at 11:46 p.m. on Wednesday, and murdering her the following day in Daejeon, 140 kilometers south of Seoul. Her body was dumped on a mountain near Daecheong Dam on the outskirts of Daejeon.

The three were caught by police some 42 hours after the woman’s abduction. 

Police have secured a testimony that one of the three suspects, identified only by his surname Lee, invited the second suspect to participate in the crime, while the second one invited the third suspect. 

The case is believed to be related to disputes between Lee and the victim over cryptocurrency investments, according to legal sources and media reports.

Lee, 35, who worked at a lawyer’s office in Seoul, testified during the initial police questioning that he had suffered a loss of some 80 million won ($61,000) after investing money into the cryptocurrency company that the victim was working for. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

More and more people are discovering the shanty town adjacent to the posh Gangnam neighborhood of Seoul:

Jason Basulto, a 27-year-old American tourist, visited Guryong Village, one of the last remaining shanty towns in Seoul, in April this year. He had been curious about Seoul’s not-so-shiny side, like the semi-basement homes featured in “Parasite.”

“Urban slums are visible not only in Korea, but in many other countries, because the wealth gap is a global issue. But the scenery of Guryong Village in the middle of high buildings was striking,” he said.

For those who are interested in social issues, the village could be an interesting place to visit, he added.

It appears so.

On YouTube, there are a number of videos that take viewers on a virtual tour of the village, where rows of ragged shacks stand in contrast to gleaming, high-rise apartment complexes just across the road.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

This stunt and the government reaction is probably going to lead to a lot of new Youtube followers for this guy:

Police are investigating a man who drove a motorcycle without a shirt in southern Seoul over the weekend and a woman who was sitting behind him in a bikini, officials said Tuesday.

The Seoul Gangnam Police Station is mulling over the possibility of bringing the charge of overexposure against the “bikini biker couple” under the Minor Offenses Act, the officials said.

The police action came after various online communities were flooded Sunday with eyewitness accounts of a shirtless man and a bikini-clad woman riding in a motorcycle in the rain in southern Seoul and adjacent areas. Both were wearing helmets.

The man known to be a YouTuber with about 19,000 subscribers has reportedly told a local media outlet that he just wanted to show how he enjoys riding a motorcycle freely, adding the speed was maintained at 20 to 30 kph at that time.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Another example of an article to keep in mind when someone tells you that South Korea is an ultra conservative country:

Two months ago, work began on a four-story retail shop in Garosugil, the trendy neighborhood in Sinsa District, southern Seoul, with no clue as to what it would sell. It looked like a show room for a global fashion brand.

The store opened in November and one step inside makes clear what kind of store it is: a purveyor of what used to be called marital aids, now known as sex toys.

A huge buzz began over N.19, as the store is called, as no sex shop in Seoul has ever been this big.

In the past, sex shops in Korea were hidden in shadowy alleys with windows covered from the inside so passersby couldn’t peek inside. There have been attempts to sell sex toys with fresh marketing strategies, but most were online. A video clip of N.19’s fancy interior went viral on social media in early December, and the number of visitors soared.  (….)

Last year alone, more than 10 sex shops with modern, casual atmospheres opened in the Hongdae and Itaewon areas.

Retail specialists say young consumers are more open to discussions of sex and not embarrassed to see adult stores on main streets. It’s also a trend in the retail industry to open large stores that specialize in one product category.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

According to the article since 2013 the police have closed a total of 187 brothels in Gangnam to include the 27 they just closed:

Gangnam-gu removed 27 illegal brothels from near schools and residential areas during the first half of this year, according to the Gangnam-gu Office on Monday.

Twenty-three were in residential areas, while four were near schools.

“We will continue to cooperate closely with the Gangnam and Suseo Police Station to get rid of illegal brothels,” Lee Hee-yeon, who heads the urban advancement office.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

With the leftists emboldened every GI crime incident now has the potential to be blown up in the media.  So far this one has been kept pretty low key considering it happened back on April 1st and we are hearing about it now:

An American soldier faces a charge for sexual assault, the Gangnam Police Station said Monday. The soldier, part of the United States Forces Korea stationed at Osan Air Base in Gyeonggi Province, allegedly raped a woman after taking her to a hotel at 7:30 a.m. near a club where they met in Gangnam, April 1.

According to police, the woman had been intoxicated when she was taken to the hotel and then raped. She reported the incident to the police the same day, claiming she believed she was raped.

After about a month-long police investigation, in which the police analyzed video footage from the club and hotel, the police identified the soldier as the culprit. The police summoned the suspect for questioning June 17 and indicted him June 20, following the protocol of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), a mutual defense treaty between Korea and the U.S.  [Korea Times]

Just like with all the other criminal cases involving US GI’s this soldier will be prosecuted through the Korean court system and if found guilty will be put in Korean prison.  It will be interesting to see in the coming months if the currently emboldened anti-US groups in Korea will try to revive the narrative that GIs are committing all these crimes and then flying home with no punishment.

Here is an update on the aftermath of the Gangnam murder case:

Korea on Wednesday unveiled a series of measures aimed at creating a more equal society for women, about a month after a woman was killed by a stranger in a high-traffic neighborhood in Seoul.

The murder sent a shockwave through a nation that has made strides in recent years but apparently leaves much to be desired in areas of gender equality.

The measures announced Wednesday focus on preventing hate crimes against women, better protecting victims of such crimes and raising awareness for gender equality in the country, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family said. It held ministerial-level talks with the Ministry of Education and the National Police Agency.

The measures are a follow-up to the first batch announced earlier this month when Korea decided to seek the maximum default sentence for hate crimes against women and actively appeal sentences that fall short.  [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link, but the murder of the young Korean woman in Gangnam reminds me so much of the Orlando shooting debate.  The scale of the two murders is no where near the same, but both led to false national debates.  For the Orlando shooting the debate has centered on banning so called “assault rifles” though no one has shown any evidence the terrorist would not have shot up that night club if every AR-15 in the country was confiscated.  The real problem appears to be once again a person with a history of mental trouble that was easily influenced by radical Islamic extremism.

In the Gangman murder the national debate in Korea has been about hate crimes against women when the murderer for years was in and out of mental hospitals and became homeless because his family could no longer handle caring for him due to his mental illness.  In my opinion the national debate to respond to both murder incidents does not address the core problems, but instead have been hijacked by activists to push pet political causes.

Flanked by police officers, the suspect behind the brutal murder of a 23-year-old woman enters a karaoke bar near a subway station in Seoul’s upscale Gangnam district on May 24, 2016, to stage a reconstruction. The 34-year-old man fatally knifed the victim in the bar’s bathroom a week ago in an alleged random crime, whipping up a nationwide outpouring of mourning. (Yonhap)

Gender Minister Kang Eun-hee looks at a myriad of Post-it condolence messages on the wall of a subway exit in southern Seoul on May 20, 2016, which citizens voluntarily left to mourn the brutal murder of a 23-year-old woman in an alleged hate crime. The woman was fatally stabbed by a stranger in a bathroom near Gangnam Subway Station on Tuesday, sparking a nationwide outpouring of mourning. (Yonhap)