Park Wang-yeol left South Korea a failed businessman and accused of fraud. Then came a triple murder in a Philippine sugarcane field, two prison escapes, and an international drug ring run from behind bars that stretched back into South Korea. Repatriated in March, after years of efforts by South Korea, Park was escorted at the airport by several police officers and surrounded by journalists. Seemingly unfazed, he recognized a reporter who had interviewed him while in prison in the Philippines a

In January 1987, the South Korean Embassy in Singapore got a call from the US Embassy about a suspicious asylum seeker, a 28-year-old Korean named Yun Tae-shik. Yun claimed he had narrowly escaped an attempted kidnapping by North Korean agents, alleging that the operation’s point person was none other than his wife. But his story quickly began to unravel. It was soon revealed that Yun had attempted to defect to North Korea before approaching the US Embassy. Further interrogation revealed a far d

The #MeToo movement pulled back the curtain on toxic work cultures in the entertainment industry — exposing how powerful men exploited women behind the scenes. In the United States, the fall of Harvey Weinstein became a defining moment, leading to convictions and a broader reckoning in Hollywood. But in South Korea, there is a case that never reached that point. In 2004, a 29-year-old female graduate student claimed she was gang-raped while working as an extra and sexually harassed by multiple T

"His Excellency doesn't allow his second-in-command to live." In the 2020 movie "The Man Standing Next," the character Park Yong-gak, based on former Korean Central Intelligence Agency chief Kim Hyung-wook, utters the ominous line about then-President Park Chung-hee. Kim, once at the pinnacle of power, went missing after last being seen at a hotel casino in Paris on Oct. 7, 1979. The Park administration remained silent on what happened to the man who headed the KCIA for six years, longer than an

Human fascination with mysticism and the afterlife has endured for millennia -- from protective spells in ancient Mesopotamia to prohibitions against magic in the Hebrew Bible, from necromancy in folklore across cultures to the hysteria of the Salem witch trials, where more than 200 people were accused of witchcraft. Today, few people would still believe it is truly possible to cast a curse or summon the dead. But in 2012, in South Korea, a small group of teenagers and young adults became engros

Lee Young-hak was once a darling of the South Korean public. In 2005, the inspirational tale of how he overcame a rare disease to become a loving father and husband touched people across the country. Donations poured in to help him, his wife and his daughter, who had the same disease. The public gave him the nickname "Molar Daddy" after the rare disease, known as gigantiform cementoma, that caused disfigurement of his and his daughter's mouths. But a horrifying truth was uncovered a decade later

There are countless murders in this world. Some are driven by rage, others by revenge -- or by money. But what if someone kills without hatred, without greed, claiming instead that they did it out of love? What if the victims were not strangers, but one’s own parents, one’s wife, one’s children? Today’s story is about a man who killed his entire family, believing he was protecting them from future hardship. This story begins with a single text message a woman received from her younger brother, s

"I understand why he did it." The words came from Lee Gi-seok, the older brother of a man accused of killing his parents, during a police interrogation. The statement stunned investigators. The victims — Lee’s mother and father — had been discovered on May 24, 2000, dismembered and stuffed into garbage bags. The suspect in custody was their younger son, Lee Eun-seok. From the outside, the Lee brothers appeared to be well brought up, from an unremarkable, even enviable, family. Both of their pare

On Nov. 21, South Korean investigators finally identified the man behind two long-unsolved murders in Seoul’s Sinjeong-dong, a case popularly known as the “Mashimaro murder.” The nickname came from the widely told account of a woman long believed to be the sole survivor, who recalled seeing a sticker of Mashimaro, a cute, bunnylike character, while hiding from her kidnapper. But here’s the twist: Police now say the survivor’s story and the detail that gave the case its nickname had nothing to do

South Korea boasts a remarkably high murder case clearance rate, reaching nearly 98 percent in 2022, according to government data. By comparison, the United States solves only around 58 to 60 percent of murder cases. If you know Korea, it’s not hard to see why. The country is a surveillance-heavy society, where nine out of 10 cars are equipped with dashcams, and security cameras are nearly everywhere, from homes to city streets. In a country so closely watched, it seems almost impossible for a c