Gang formed union to shake down companies: Police

Police accuse members of a gang in Incheon of establishing a quasi-labor union and using it as a platform to approach construction companies to extort some 120 million won ($91,550) in just a year, the police reported...

Members of a gang in Incheon pose together with a banner that demands payment for their supposed labor at construction sites. [GYEONGGI NAMBU PROVINCIAL POLICE AGENCY]

Police accused members of a gang in Incheon of establishing a quasi-labor union and using it as a platform to approach construction companies to extort some 120 million won ($91,550) in just a year.

Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency announced Wednesday that it had handed three gang members and six members of a labor union in Incheon to prosecutors, requesting they be charged with collective acts of violence.

All nine, some of whom went to the same high school, were part of the Federation of Korean Trade Unions until 2017, when they left the union and created their own.

Through the union, they approached a total of nine construction companies between August 2020 and September 2021 in Osan, Anyang, Bucheon, Yongin and Incheon in Gyeonggi, and extorted a total of 120 million won, using threats.

The threats included using drones to capture images of workers without safety helmets or collecting evidence of construction companies hiring illegal immigrants as workers.

The gang members would then show the footage to construction site managers and threaten to report them to local authorities unless the company hired them.

In some cases, they would be hired and paid salaries without actually showing up for work, according to the police.

In order to hire the gang members, some construction companies had to lay off other workers before their contracts had terminated.

One construction site manager in Osan gave the police a recorded conversation with one of the gang members.

“Why should we hand over the money we made while doing honest work?” the manager asks in the conversation.

“Have you ever seen us take money dishonestly from you?” the gang member replies, before hurling expletives at the manager.

The police are investigating the additional use of threats and violence by the gang members against at least 60 other construction companies, who are believed to have paid the gang members some 420 million won.

“We are expanding the investigation as a number of violent acts have been confirmed at construction sites in the greater Seoul area,” said Jung Jae-nam, head of an investigation team at Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency in a statement.

BY SON SUNG-BAE, ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]