Five Koreans held captive in Mexico have been released safely.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is that there appear to be some serious questions about the nature of the kidnapping.
One unnamed high-ranking Korean government official, for instance, told Money Today that it didn’t seem like it was a real kidnapping. He said it appears the incident occurred during a fight between groups of people trying to smuggle themselves into the United States. He said the people involved have been arrested, bringing the matter to a conclusion.
Another unnamed official said of the five, two were Korean expats and three were travelers. To get to the bottom of the incident, the government first needed to learn the relationship between the five.
The five were kidnapped on July 14 after they went to the border town of Reynosa — just across the river from McAllen, Texas — to look for job information, reportedly. Authorities will have to wait for their return, however, to learn why exactly they were there.
(HT to reader)
UPDATE: Yonhap now reports that one of the five released captives was a Chinese national.
Lots of talk that this was a botched attempt to get into the United States, too. For example, Mexican police say that when police were sent to rescue the five, they tried to run away (or at least so it seemed). The top prosecutor in the Mexican state where this all went down also said the five came to Mexico to smuggle themselves into the United States with the help of a human trafficking ring.
The freed captives, however, are denying the tried to sneak into the United States.
21 Comments
I didn’t know there were coyotes in Korea.
1/Tripod: Explain?
Alright…They were probably chicken farmers.
Why would you hand yourself over to Mexican smugglers when you could check into a nice B&B in Quebec, get a hot breakfast, and slip over the border into Vermont or New Hampshire to start your new American life thumbing through old postcards at the Antique Barn?
Korea: The Hub of Immigration!
#2: “Coyote” is slang for people who sneak others into the USA from Mexico.
And I agree, it seems oddly expensive that Koreans would go to the trouble…. I mean, just overstaying a visit to the USA seems easier than going to Mexico, arranging the smuggling, doing the walking through the desert, then making one’s way to a Korean community.
@andy-in-japan:
When the visa waiver kicks in, Koreans will no longer need coyotes. Until then, those unable to obtain US visas use Canada or Mexico as a transit. The five were in the far eastern part of the Mexico-US border, near the Gulf of Mexico. It’s not desert there.
I knew a certified, aka. paid a crap load of money to learn how to “become” possessed and good luck “spells” and what not, shaman. She was not making enough bank here in Seoul, but knew some people in the Korean LA community who believed there was a huge demand there for her services. She couldn’t get a visa of course so she decided to fly to Vancouver and get in the trunk of a car, driven by these friends, and slip over into the states. This was about six months after 9/11.
I had taken the Niagara Falls crossing about a month before and had seen the ramped up security. We were having kalbi with a group of friends the night before she went, and I told her not to go. She went. No one heard from her for three months. Finally word got through that she had been nabbed and was being indefinably imprisoned in the US until they sorted out her status visa-vie the new terrorist laws. I still don’t know if she’s out to this day.
Anyway, I guess the B and B in Quebec is no safe route either these days, maybe these guys though it was better to let professionals handle the job.
“indefinably imprisoned in the US until they sorted out her status visa-vie the new terrorist laws”
?
One last comment. As Freud is reputed for having said: “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” Likewise, sometimes mass ignorance is just mass ignorance. The fact that it takes an expat to say this naturally means that the messenger will be shot. He’ll be villified as a racist,a cultural intolerent, and, most ironic of all, an incompetent unemployable who needs to come all the way to Korea just to find employment (which is an ironic criticism that tacitly acknowledges that which it attempts to dispute about Korea itself.)
But as Freud deftly points out, such misplaced criticism is nothing if not psychological projectionism - grossly transparent overcompensation for feelings of inadequacy.
Obvious as this is, the expat comes away with the unavoidable impression that Koreans are not a very self-reflective nation and, while extremely thick when it comes to self-examination, are equally inclined to assume the absolute wost about foreigners. Insofar as one would characterize this as a cultural war, the shots are fired entirely from the Korean side, with the bemused foreigner sitting on the sidelines watching self righteous Korean nationals shadow boxing with their own projections, which they conflate with the person of the foreigner himself.
Now, I can appreciate the perspective of feeling misunderstood. But to be accurate, it is a feeling, and not a reality.
Pardon me.. the above comment was intended for the thread titled “A Primer on Expats in Korea” and is entirely off topic here.
She was arrested on the boarder. I best I understand the legal theory the reason border police can search cars and people without a warrant is that, due to the fact it takes place on a boarder, or an area designated as such, you are not in any country and there is no legal system in place, hence no need for a warrant.
After 9/11 the word came down to arrest people people attempting to sneak into the US. As they were arrested on the boarder the US government took this a step argued that, having never entered the country legally, they were in boarder limbo and had no constitutional rights or legal recourses. They would only be release and deported when the US government decided they were not a terrorist threat. There were several cases in the news at that time about foreign nationals of Arabic descent being held Guantanamo Bay style for long periods of time in the US back then. They were fighting to be recognized by any court. She got caught up in this and was held for at least 3 months. I assume the US has stopped doing this as I have not heard about it in many years.
sorry should have edited that before hitting send.
#8,
Well, some people aren’t exactly…smart.
So, did anybody get my comment at #3 yet?
Sorry, that was directed at #4, not 8.
No, but please, stop trolling.
#15,
Not trolling. ‘Polleros’: chicken farmers, someone who smuggles people.
many years ago, i heard that koreans would use mexico to enter US illegally… but i also heard some horror stories that sounded like urban myths–but after hearing some stories from other illegal immigrants, they seem plausible…
i wonder if those korean would be illegal immigrants have any idea whatsoever what they are getting involved in… I heard the illegal immigrant tell me that it costs like 20,000 to 30,000 to go from central america to US… this is information is like 10 years old…
I guess the good news is that if Al-Qaeda ever try to sneak nuclear weapons into US, there is a chance that they get kidnapped by the Mexican mafia on the way… Although i’m not sure who i’d rather see have nukes…
1 is a Chinese dude
Another as a criminal record in Korea
Frankly the Korean gov’t should just leave em in Mexico.
Latest update:
3 of the five were found to be Josonjoks - ethnic Koreans with Chinese nationality.
The other two real South Koreans were probably brokers belonging to a human smuggling ring.
http://news.chosun.com/site/da.....00768.html
The three Chinese nationals used fake South Korean passports to enter Mexico.
There are also reports that they were caught by corrupt Mexican police who demanded bribes then turned them over to the kidnappers.
http://news.joins.com/article/.....l?ctg=1300
i was recently in the us embassy in seoul applying for my wife’s visa and overheard a korean youth during his interview with the embassy staff. apparently he had been to the us before but wouldn’t say how he got there. when pressed, he admitted to have entered from mexico. but as he had no entry stamp in his passport for the us, the staff continued to ask him how he got in. he was quite young and obviously very nervous during the interviews. he was mumbling so it was hard to hear him, but then we heard one word, “desert”… when the staff heard that, shit hit the fan. so they obviously rejected his application and then told him that if he wants to apply again, then he would need to provide a letter from his mother explaining why she let him travel across the desert in the trunk of a car.