A university student on leave found a novel way to make money — by banging massage-parlor prostitutes and then blackmailing them with threats to report them to the cops. [Maeil Business Newspaper, Korean, via Yonhap]
According to the cops, 26-year-old Mr. Bae went into a massage parlor in Seocho-dong in the morning of May 31. After engaging in paid sex with one of the employees, he told her that he wasn’t satisfied and demanded a refund. When the girl said no, he threatened to report her professional activities to the cops. Confronted with this threat, she gave him 1 million won (!).
As it would turn out, Bae had pulled the same stunt — successfully! — in 12 others Gangnam massage parlors between May 10 and recently. All told, he netted 10.3 million won.
Police say Bae used most of the money to pay his cost of living and to invest in stocks.
{ 27 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow… this guy threatened to go to the cops to extort money from hookers, but none of the 800 “customers” (read: rapists) of the kidnapped middle school girl would do the same. What a sick world we live in.
Genius.
So, the cops closed the massage parlors, right? They do have evidence that prostitution has been taking place there, after all.
Just wait until an English teacher, GI, or other social outcast wae-gook tries this…
I think I found my new hero.
Talk about getting screwed in more ways than one…
A rank amateur. After pulling that scam a couple of times a pro would have upped his game by taking pictures and threatening to post them unless re-occurring freebies and payments were provided.
The guy’s a scumbag.
I agree with Brendon.
Just wait ’til the girls’ bosses (mobsters) catch up with this knucklehead. He’s gonna be fooked. Hope he enjoyed it while it lasted.
He must be a gyopo influenced by evil westerners. A Korean would never do such a thing. I think #10 is on to something though.
This is why restaurants and bars hire “protection” mob to beat up guys like these.
Maybe pimps are not “lazy gentlemen” after all; they may do some work protecting their girls.
coctuggis will be paying him a visit no doubt.
Don’t girls working at those places adopt false names to protect their identity? The guy must forced them to show their ID card.
I guess there is a name for someone who uses prostitutes to get laid and paid – pimp. Not the most admirable of occupations.
Great stories like this keep me coming back to the marmots hole!
The entreprenurial spirit is alive and well in Korea.
I think it’s also admirable that the young man put part of his ill-begotten earnings into stocks. Let your money work for you.
I agree with Brendon and Iceberg that the guy’s a scumbag. Nothing admirable except the daring; certainly nothing heroic. Those women are doing honest work needed by society, shouldn’t be bothered by extortionists or pimps (nor by cops, as long as they obey health laws and don’t cheat customers).
Right, so the guy is a scumbag. But, that doesn’t answer my question: Did the cops close the massage parlors?
Would you be surprised if they did?
Maybe I’m naive, but aren’t they cracking down on prostitution?
Not really. Only on its more public and old-fashioned-style manifestations.
“Maybe I’m naive, but aren’t they cracking down on prostitution?”
Supposedly. Same with cracking down on drivers running red lights or cracking down on illegal teachers. Periodic and largely cosmetic.
And, without a doubt, the guy who pulled this scam is a real asshole. If I were him, I’d be more worried about the people who run these places than the police. When it comes to this kind of stuff, they tend not to have much of a sense of humor.
Anybody have any idea why the “window shops” with the pink lights in the streets about a block in front of Yongsan Station are allowed to stay open? It couldn’t get any more public than that.
The pink light places are all over Seoul. The ones I’ve seen don’t have windows and the women sit in the doorway at the entrance.
They’ve been cracking so many things for many years now, the results of which can just crack you up. It’s all just flash in the pan.
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