A Korean American former gang member who fled to Korea to avoid being tried for attempted murder in Los Angeles was arrested today for forged documents, according to Yonhap News.
The 33-year-old man, identified only by his last name Kim, had been running an English language school in the affluent Gangnam neighborhood of Seoul for the past three years under another person’s name, police said.
Yonhap reported that the man was a gang member wanted by cops in L.A. since May 1997 for his attempted murder of a member of a rival Mexican American gang. Kim fled the country in July 1997.
With the help of a relative, the suspect surnamed Kim reactivated a nullified Korean resident registration number of an emigrant in order to gain a fake identity. He also obtained and renewed a driver’s license and a passport under the fake name and even made 34 overseas trips using the forged passport, according to police.
The charges against Kim also include forging a U.S. university degree, the police agency said. He used a diploma from a prestigious American university in order to run an English institute specializing in SAT tutoring, they said.
“Kim took advantage of the fact that authorities only have a few materials to verify the identities of those who emigrated (from Korea) as children,” a police official said. “He also knew that one can launder his identity through a simple process that requires only the registration of fingerprints.”
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