Alleged sex-trade ring broken up in Bay Area
Police say Koreans in massage parlors were smuggled in
Jaxon Van Derbeken, Ryan Kim, Chronicle Staff Writers

A force of 400 federal and local law officers raided 11 suspected brothels and arrested 27 suspects in what was described as a major Bay Area sex trafficking operation that preyed on Korean women brought into the country illegally, authorities said Friday.

In a series of searches begun Thursday, investigators said they found more than 100 women working as prostitutes at 10 San Francisco massage parlors and one in Emeryville.

At the same time in Southern California, local and federal agents conducted a similar operation that resulted in 18 arrests of people believed to be involved in smuggling hundreds of South Korean women into the United States to work as prostitutes. Agents there also took 46 women into custody when they were found working in suspected brothels in Santa Monica, the Koreatown area of Los Angeles and Redondo Beach.

The San Francisco operation, officials said, was allegedly run by a 37- year-old Pleasant Hill man, Young Joon Yang, who was arrested at a home in Beverly Hills. An indictment charges Yang with conspiracy to harbor aliens, sex trafficking, conspiracy to launder money and transporting women across interstate lines to engage in prostitution.
...
Of the five indicted suspects still being sought, authorities said two are considered major figures in the ring -- Wu Sang Nah, also known as Kang Nah, and Sung Yong Kim, 39, also known as Nam Kim.

Nah and Kim are charged with enticing Korean women to the United States by fraud and deceit. Documents alleged that they helped smuggle two women who ultimately came to work at King's Massage in San Francisco to pay off their smuggling fee.

The two unidentified women allegedly were coerced into working as prostitutes at King's between May and August 2004, according to the indictment. The investigation began when the women came forward voluntarily in August of last year.

Authorities believe the ring targeted women from the impoverished areas of South Korea, offering them jobs as waitresses and bar hostesses in America and charging them fees ranging from $10,000 to $15,000.

About 102 women were being held in the San Francisco/Emeryville case and were being interviewed at an undisclosed location, investigators said.

A giant anti-U.S. President George W. Bush message apparently written in herbicide has appeared on the lawn of the UN Memorial Cemetery in Daeyeon-dong, Busan. The site is reportedly on the itinerary of visiting national leaders attending the APEC summit in November.

The office of the UN Memorial Cemetery said Thursday it notified Nambu Police Station on the morning of June 14 that someone had written "NO BUSH" in 10 m high letters on the lawn between the flags of nations participating in the Korean War and the graves.

The cemetery's office said it appeared the perpetrators used liquid herbicide to write the message, which was 50 m [165 ft] wide, with each line some 30 cm [12 in] thick. Given the scale, it must have taken several people with spraying tools to write it, the office said. The grass is being restored.

Police have sent samples of the herbicide to the National Institute of Scientific Investigation for analysis and are focusing their attention on local universities. The cemetery is the last resting place of some 2,300 foreign soldiers who fell during the Korean War.

Each Unites [sic] States person, who has a financial interest in or signature authority, or other authority over any financial accounts, including bank, securities, or other types of financial accounts in a foreign country, if the aggregate value of these financial accounts exceeds $10,000 at any time during the calendar year, must report that relationship each calendar year by filing TD F 90-22.1 with the Department of the Treasury on or before June 30, of the succeeding year.

South Korea's baseball authorities have banned a star pitcher from wearing frozen cabbage leaves in his cap to keep cool during games.

The Korean Baseball Association met in special session after cabbage leaves twice fell from Park Myung-Hwan's cap live on television.

Players may now only wear cabbage by presenting a doctor's note in advance.

He began keeping cabbage leaves in his cap last year after hearing that US baseball legend Babe Ruth used them to keep cool on the field.

The chronology suggests the hackers could have harvested stolen passwords from visitors to the MSN site for up to three days. But their target — passwords to game accounts — lessened the significance of the break-in since the hacker software appeared not to collect any network or banking passwords.

The Lineage game and its successor boast more than 4 million subscribers, mostly in Asia, who pay about $15 each month, said Mike Crouch, a spokesman for the U.S. subsidiary of South Korea-based NCSoft Corp. Crouch said he was unaware of any significant increase in complaints by subscribers about stolen passwords tied to the Microsoft break-in.

US Club owner arrested in Korean trafficking, prostitution case

By Bill Miller and agencies
May 3, 2005

Dallas - A Texas businessman faces federal charges of harboring seven Korean women who, according to federal agents, were illegally brought to the United States to work as party hostesses in his Dallas karaoke club.

Sung Bum Chang, 39, of Coppell, was released on his own recognizance during a preliminary hearing Wednesday before U.S. Magistrate Irma C. Ramirez in Dallas. He was arrested early Tuesday at his home during a raid by 20 federal agents, including a heavily armed tactical team.

Special Agent David Popp of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement testified that agents believe Chang worked with an "international alien smuggling ring" to recruit Korean hostesses for his business, the WA Club.

WASHINGTON - A human rights organization known for tracking down Nazi war criminals is taking aim at North Korea, saying the regime uses deadly nerve gas on its own citizens and may even be operating experimental gas chambers.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center sent American rabbi Abraham Cooper, the centre's associate dean, to Asia to investigate the reports, which the North Korean regime denies. [more]

Samsung Develops World's Largest 82'' LCD
By Kim Sung-jin, Staff Reporter
Samsung Electronics has developed an 82-inch-thin film transistor-liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD), which the company claims is the largest in the world.

North Korea’s Latest Deadly Weapon
Demanding talks with the United States, Kim Jong Il says he possesses an unreleased Ben Affleck film.

WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Andy Borowitz
Newsweek
Updated: 12:14 p.m. ET Feb. 15, 2005

Feb. 15 - North Korea sent shockwaves through the international community today by announcing that it possesses an unreleased Ben Affleck film which it will open wide if the United States does not agree to bilateral talks.

Moments after North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il used his weekly radio address to drop the Affleck bombshell, intelligence experts acknowledged that the calculus in the Korean peninsula had irrevocably changed.

"If Kim is telling the truth about possessing an Affleck movie, and we have reason to believe he is, it is time to upgrade the North Korean situation to a crisis," one CIA source said.

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea (news - web sites) on Thursday announced for the first time that it has nuclear arms and rejected moves to restart disarmament talks any time soon, saying it needs the weapons as protection against an increasingly hostile United States.

The communist state's pronouncement dramatically raised the stakes in the two-year-old nuclear confrontation and posed a grave challenge to President Bush (news - web sites), who started his second term with a vow to end North Korea's nuclear program through six-nation talks.

"We ... have manufactured nukes for self-defense to cope with the Bush administration's ever more undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the (North)," the North Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

Kim Jong-Hwan, the director of the ITRC-Intelligent Robot Research Centre, has developed a series of artificial chromosomes that, he says, will allow robots to feel lusty, and could eventually lead to them reproducing.

A federal air marshal was arrested Tuesday on charges he played a role in a human trafficking ring that officials say worked out of a Flushing nightclub.

Byungki Koo, 33, of Fresh Meadows, surrendered to officials Tuesday after he was indicted on charges that he tried to obstruct the probe of a slavery operation that investigators believe was based out of the Renaissance Bar at 35-28 154th St.

The latest charges in the case are another indication that federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, who first indicted the Renaissance owners last year on assorted slavery and trafficking charges, are ramping up the probe.

Investigators with the Brooklyn U.S. attorney's office have been following leads back to South Korea through the banking system and in other parts of Queens as part of a growing probe of the nightclub scene catering to Asian immigrants, sources familiar with the case said.

The indictment unsealed Tuesday accused Koo of trying to kidnap a woman. He was charged with obstructing enforcement of the federal peonage law, which covers the use of forced labor to pay off debts. Koo was believed to be working as an air marshal when he allegedly committed the crime, a source said.

At Koo's arraignment Tuesday, his attorney entered a not guilty plea for him. Magistrate-Judge Joan Azrack ordered Koo temporarily held until Koo can come up with an acceptable bail proposal.

Koo faces at least 20 years in prison if convicted, prosecutors said.

(emphasis mine).

NEW YORK -- An air marshal helped the suspects in a human trafficking case try to kidnap one of their victims to stop her from testifying against them, federal prosecutors charged Tuesday.

Byungki Koo became the second federal law enforcer charged with helping Kyongja and Wun Hee Kang try to evade charges that they lured two young women from Korea to work as hostesses at their bar in Queens. The women say they were physically and sexually assaulted after they refused to have sex with customers.

The Kangs were charged last year with crimes that include violating forced-labor laws by confiscating the women's passports and forcing them to work for free to pay off tens of thousands of dollars in travel expenses.

Customs and Border Protection marine inspector Nisim Yushuvayev was charged with obstructing the investigation by trying to take one victim to John F. Kennedy International Airport against her will and send her back to Korea.

Koo pleaded not guilty Tuesday to conspiracy and obstruction charges that Assistant U.S. Attorney Lee Freedman said stemmed from his involvement in the deportation plot. He was ordered held without bail.

Defense attorney Denis McAllister said Koo, who knew Yushuvayev from work, served only as an interpreter for the Kangs in their conversations with Yushuvayev.

Koo could face as much as 20 years in prison if convicted. He was placed on immediate administrative leave with pay, a Department of Homeland Security spokesman said.

An attorney for Wun Hee Kang said last year the case resulted from a cultural misunderstanding of a business arrangement common in Korea.

(emphasis mine).

THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION HAS BEEN TAKEN FROM NORTH KOREAN 
PROPOGANDA ARTICLES OVER THE LAST 7 MONTHS. THIS WORKSHEET IS 
DESIGNED TO HELP THE AVERAGE READER UNDERSTAND THE NORTH KOREAN 
PROPOGANDA ARTISTS. 

TO USE THE ONE AND ONLY NO-DONG SINMUN QUICK PHRASEOLOGY WORKSHEET,
 JUST PICK A 3-DIGIT NUMBER AND MATCH THE COLUMNS:

     NO DONG SINMUN QUICK PHRASEOLOGY WORKSHEET
  1 TRAITOROUS     1 FASCIST         1 PHRASEMONGERS
  2 FRANTICALLY    2 PROVOCATIONAL   2 RASCALS
  3 BELLICOSE      3 BABBLING        3 SIMPLETONS
  4 RECKLESS       4 FRENZISH        4 CLIQUES
  5 TREACHEROUS    5 FUTILE          5 STOOGES
  6 COLONIAL       6 WARLIKING       6 REACTIONARIES
  7 SINISTER       7 FLUNKYIST       7 HOOLIGANS
  8 PERFIDIOUS     8 BLURTING-OUT    8 PUPPETS
  9 UNSCRUPULOUS   9 MANEUVERING     9 IMPERIALISTS

EXAMPLE: 763 = SINISTER WARLIKING SIMPLETONS
         436 = RECKLESS BABBLING REACTIONARIES