Kkangpae in Los Angeles
The Kkangpae, meaning "thugs", are members of unorganized street gangs in South Korea; members of organized crime syndicates in Korea are called Jopok. The Kkangpae originated in Korea during Park Chung-hee's dictatorship under the aegis of Japan's yakuza, engaging in illicit activities such as black marketeering and extortion. Organized crime became a major issue in Korea during the 1990s, following the country's liberalization, and in connection with Japan's own bubble economy period.
History[]
Organized crime in Korea[]
During the 1970s, thanks to the diplomacy of the Zainichi yakuza boss Hisayuki Machii, South Korea became a yakuza playground, refuge, and investment center wehre Japanese fugitives would steal across the Sea of Japan and hide out in Korea's coastal cities untilt he heat had passed. The Inagawa-kai and other yakuza syndicates established casinos and arranged high-stakes gambling tours of the country, shaking down corporate executives in cooperation with their new Korean friends. In major cities like Seoul and Pusan, money was laundered in bars, cabarets, and restaurants, and, in 1974, the Inagawa-kai set up a gravel business on the large southern island of Cheju; all of the major yakuza syndicates became involved in prostitution and drug trafficking.
Korea's own organized crime scene was different, in that, until Korea's democratization in the late 1980s, criminal gangs there were small and limited in scope, as organized crime could only exist in authoritarian societies when the government allowed it to. By 1984, between the KCIA, civil police, and military intelligence, the Korean security state was so powerful that it was impossible for organized crime to operate without official sanction, meaning that the few existing syndicates were state-sponsored or state-sanctioned.
Small crime rings arose in Korea, forming the hard core of the yakuza's Korean connection. These enterprising bands of between 5 and 25 members took their chances in smuggling, the black market, and pickpocketing, and they took their names from hometown cities, smuggling boats, or other names, such as Seoulpa (pa meaning "mob"), Pusanpa, and Insonghopa. Due to the presence of 40,000 American soldiers in Korea, the Kkangpae involved themselves in the black market, and controls on imports enabled widespread smuggling of everything from electronics to Chinese medicine.
As Korean society liberalized, Korean crime syndicates grew larger and more sophisticated, and more like the yakuza. The gangs in Korea disguised themselves as social organizations or religious groups, and they engaged in widespread extortion, loan sharking, gambling, drugs, and influence peddling, while influencing the entertainment and construction industries. By the early 1990s, Korean gangs controlled the supply of liquor to the entertainment business and formed working alliances with the yakuza syndicates in Japan. The yakuza eventually became involved in training Korean gangsters. When the Pusan police raided Korea's White Tiger Gang in 1990, they found evidence that the Yamaguchi-gumi had trained the gang's leaders in a ten-day seminar in Kobe, having the Korean crooks shave their heads, listen to lectures on yakuza traditions and moneymaking techniques, and be trained in the use of guns during a midnight shooting session.
During the era of the Japanese bubble economy, Korea attracted thousands of yakuza for good times and cheap investments, and, while the Yamaguchi-gumi partnered with the White Tiger Gang, the Sakaume-gumi partnered with another Pusan gang and bought real estate there. By 1995, 5,000 yakuza visited Korea annually, and yakuza investors bought a twelve-story luxury hotel in Pusan, a department store in Ulsan, and real estate in Seoul. Other yakuza bought securities and hired Korean hitmen to murder Japanese, and, by the 1990s, Korea found itself with a major organized crime problem plagued not only by increasingly capable local gangs, but also by the yakuza, the Russian Mafia, and the Chinese triads.