By Jennifer P. Rendon
For three years, a South Korean man was able to hide his identity from neighbors in Barangay West Timawa, Molo, Iloilo City.
Park Kyounhjyoun, 52, had claimed to be a bankrupt Korean and had to live on dole-outs from Ilonggos and a friend.
It wasn’t until members of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG)-Iloilo Field Unit barged into Park’s boarding house that they learned that the meek Park has been a fugitive in his home country Korea for more than two years already.
Major Jess Baylon, CIDG-Iloilo field unit commander, said they collared the South Korean by virtue of an arrest warrant from INTERPOL NCB Seoul, KNPA to INTERPOL NCB Manila dated March 30, 2021.
He was charged for the crime of fraud in Criminal Act 347-(1) docketed under warrant no. 2019-3702 issued on Feb. 18, 2019.
Baylon said the suspect’s the last record of immigration was logged on Feb. 2, 2012 at Macau but he was spotted in the Philippines.
According to reports, Park identified himself as a businessman who was into mining. He allegedly asked the complainants to invest in his business.
Initially, he was able to ask for 136 million South Korean won (around P13.6 million) from around 32 complainants.
Baylon said Park was into the said modus operandi for around 20 years already but the first complainant lodged the criminal charge sometime in 2012. It was only in 2019 that a warrant of arrest was issued against him.
Baylon noted that Park’s physical appearance has drastically changed based on the photos provided by the Interpol. From someone who has a robust appearance, his weight dropped and he aged a lot.
A woman allegedly brought him to a boarding house in Molo but it wasn’t long before she wasn’t seen in the area anymore.
Park has admitted the charges against him.
He claimed that he got addicted to gambling in Macau and lost all the money that he swindled from the complainants.
He went to Manila and stayed for a year and proceeded to Cebu and Bacolod City where he stayed for six months.
Park had been living in Iloilo City for three years prior to his arrest on Monday.
He is now at the CIDG-Iloilo FU custody for proper disposition of his case.
