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Historians believe that the rise of Korean mobs started back in the 17th century, the fading days of the Joseon Dynasty. With the rise of commerce and the emergence of investment from western powers, pre-existing street gangs, often consisting of lower class muscle and operated by wealthy merchants, gained influence.
During the 35 years of Japanese rule, Koreans were subjected to forced labor andforced prostitution . This intensified during World War II when Japan spread its empire throughout Manchuria,and parts of China.
Koreans fled to Japan and formed mobs to overcome racial hate and crimes. The most infamous "mobster" during this period was Kim Doo Han, the son of a famous independence fighter and insurgent leader Kim Jwa-jin, a freedom fighter against Colonial rule. After his father and mother were killed, he grew up as a beggar and hung out with a local gang, named Jumok (fist). He rose through the ranks and became infamous for fighting groups against the yakuza.
http://www.munhwa.com/news/view.html?no=20050207010110270370010- http://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/31/nyregion/five-indicted-in-a-robbery-at-a-church.html
- http://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/09/nyregion/korean-gangsters-held-in-extortion.html
- http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/24/nyregion/5-men-said-to-be-in-korean-mob-are-charged-in-waiters-assault.html
- http://www.scribd.com/doc/7737612/New-York-Press-ADARIO-STRANGE-Manhattans-Invisible-Korean-Power
- http://www.stanford.edu/group/reflections/Winter1998/Nonfiction/KoreanPride.html
- http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,501020114-192602,00.html
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/10/AR2009011001848.html
"... the Korea Tribune publisher, Bryan Kim, the man who had sold her the advertisements that Mrs. Park says she never saw published in the weekly, things turned ugly: she demanded her $100 back and he got angry, continuing to pressure her to pay for more ads, Mrs. Park, 41, told Queens prosecutors. Mr. Kim then threatened to bomb the restaurant, publish an article about her stealing tips from her waitresses and make bogus complaints of bug infestation to the City Health Department, she told prosecutors."
The case against Mr. Kim is an unusual instance in which victims of swindles involving immigrants preying upon their own countrymen have been willing to come forward, prosecutors say. And while the case against Mr. Kim may be extreme, shopkeepers, editors and immigration experts say the case provides a window into a murky and potentially volatile set of relationships at work every day in immigrant neighborhoods across the city.
The weekly foreign-language newspapers, whose numbers have exploded in recent years, are closely read by immigrants and can hold considerable influence in their communities. They are free and widely distributed, but often short-lived and generally not as trusted as the more established daily ethnic publications.
And most important, according to experts on the ethnic press, the weekly newspapers operate on shoestring budgets, with one person wearing all the hats, from publisher to columnist. The lines between advertising and news, persuasion and intimidation can often become blurred, the experts say.
''Many people see this as a business rather than as a journalistic mission,'' said Sreenath Sreenivasan, a co-founder of the South Asian Journalists Association and a professor of journalism at Columbia University. ''Most of the organizations are good and they are committed to journalism, but the bad apples show you how deep the problem is.''
And even if they manage to get wind of a situation that has crossed the line from pressure to intimidation or worse, prosecutors are rarely able to make legal cases. Newspaper publishers like Mr. Kim, a former prominent real estate broker who is an influential figure among Koreans in Flushing, often wield formidable power in tightknit immigrant communities.
''This is a very, very gray area,'' said Brian J. Mich, chief of the economic crimes and arson bureau for the Queens district attorney's office. ''The publishers approach the merchants and then ask for advertising and because of the low budgets of these papers, there is a strong tie between the editorial and advertising departments.''
Mr. Kim, a Korean immigrant who moved to Queens from Los Angeles, was well known in Flushing for his successful real estate business before he started publishing The Korea Tribune in 1997. Mr. Park, the restaurant owner whose wife complained to the authorities about Mr. Kim, had even secured an apartment through his rental office.
Prosecutors said that before he made the threats against Mrs. Park, Mr. Kim had already approached another Korean immigrant, who owns a Flushing nightclub, demanding $1,000 a month to advertise the nightclub in The Korea Tribune. If he refused to pay, Mr. Kim said he would ''smear'' the business and ''send Korean gang members to trash'' the club, according to the criminal complaint filed against him.
Byung Sook Lee, the president of the Korean Women's Business Association in Queens and one of the people who has complained to prosecutors about Mr. Kim, said in an interview that Mr. Kim approached her last spring, asking if she wanted to place an advertisement in The Korea Tribune for her organization. She said that during the initial conversation, Mr. Kim told her that if she did not advertise, he would write a ''negative'' article about her.
She said she refused to place an advertisement and then found herself the subject of what she said was a false article in The Tribune saying she was running an illicit massage parlor.
...
Two days after his arrest, Mr. Kim published a special issue of The Tribune, reprinting articles about the people, including Ms. Lee and a Korean minister -- whose photograph appeared on the front page of that issue -- who had complained to the authorities or others about the publisher's tactics.
In the special issue, Mr. Kim also published a new article about Mrs. Park, the Flushing restaurant owner, asking her to drop the charges and adding: ''By the way, last time we met I asked you if you were stealing tips from your waitresses. Maybe you were worried about that. But no way would I, Bryan Kim, write something like that.''
...
The Parks, who are not related to the City Council candidate, said they were plenty fearful of Mr. Kim's newspaper. What had haunted them most, they said, was that someone from their own country had tried, in their view, to destroy them.
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