Korean Job Discussion Forums

[rapier]

Maybe thee hogwon is a cover for a drug dealing set up. I've seen plenty of hagwons that must be the same, because there's certainly not much serious teaching going on in them

[Dalton]

NEWS STORY
Canadians caught in drug crackdown, not job scam

Juliet O'Neill
The Ottawa Citizen


Tuesday, October 28, 2003



Nine young Canadians, many of them ESL teachers, are in prison in South Korea facing drug-related charges and some are keeping their situation secret, except from Foreign Affairs officials, to prevent their parents from finding out.

Five Canadians were arrested just last week, three of them in the small industrial city of Gumi.

The flurry of arrests is a reflection of enforcement of a "zero-tolerance" drug policy rather than language schools framing foreigners to escape salary payments, Foreign Affairs spokesman Reynald Doiron said yesterday.

He said all of the detained Canadians are entitled under privacy law to request that no information about their situation goes to third parties, which includes their parents.

He made the comments in wake of concerns expressed publicly by Joan Hunt, an Ottawa nurse, about Noah Pawlowski, a 22-year-old friend of her daughter, who also teaches English as a Second Language in Korea.

Mr. Pawlowski was arrested and imprisoned just moments after signing for a package that was not addressed to him at the school where he was on his last week of fulfilling a one-year contract teaching English as a Second Language in Daegu. The package allegedly contained drugs.

Ms. Hunt's good intentions of helping the young man and warning other young teachers of perils in South Korea were not welcome by a Canadian relative of Mr. Pawlowski.

His cousin, Laura Clarke of Victoria, B.C., said she objected to Ms. Hunt suggesting he had little family support and may have been intimidated into keeping his situation secret. Ms. Clarke said in a telephone interview the young man did not want any information released, he does get letters from home, has been visited by close friends and he is in frequent contact with Canadian consular officials.

"We've been dealing with this from day one; he has plenty of support from here," said an angry Ms. Clarke. "He wanted things kept quiet. He's got to come home to everybody knowing what is going on."

"All we know is he received a parcel that was not addressed to him," Ms. Clarke added. "We're really hopeful that he will be pardoned and deported."

Consular officials are scheduled to visit Mr. Pawlowski today at the detention centre for the second time since his arrest in late September. His trial date is Nov. 4.

Ms. Hunt had expressed concerns that Mr. Pawlowski may have been framed so that the school could escape paying his final salary, bonus and airfare home.

Ms. Hunt had good intentions in bringing the young man's case to light, as she was worried he had been intimidated into keeping his situation secret, and had no family support that her daughter knew of.

"If it was my child, I would want people fighting for my child," Ms. Hunt said. She was delighted to discover yesterday that his family knows of his situation and is in contact with consular officials.

Mr. Doiron said three young Canadians, a women and two men, all in their 20s, were arrested at a bar in Gumi last Friday, Oct. 24, and charged with possession of drugs and smoking hashish in a bar.

The previous day, Oct. 23, two Canadians were arrested in Seoul for allegedly purchasing drugs. One arrest of a Canadian with large quantities of ecstasy and LSD took place last February. Others facing drug-related charges have been in detention since Nov. 21, 2002 and July 12, 2003.

"The rumour under which you could be framed does not correspond to our experience in other comparable cases and it would be certainly contrary to the best of our knowledge of Korean culture about their way of doing things, not only on drug-related charges but in the way police behave," Mr. Doiron said.

"It's a zero-tolerance (anti-drug) policy. ... From a strict legal point of view, judicial point of view and government's response, it's a zero-tolerance policy."

Mr. Doiron noted that Foreign Affairs warns Canadians of the zero-tolerance policy on its website. He said South Korea provides due process of law in the courts.


The Whole Report

Sorry. subsequent posts have made it clear that I should have stated that I only posted the first couple of paragraphs of the whole report. I have now pasted the entire story.

[Cthulhu]

[Kalhoun]

Honestly, I would not be at all surprised if the guy is guilty. I've heard that stuff going down in the past. In addition, with the lenient drug laws in Canada, I'm not at all shocked concerning those who want to mail weed over to Korea. But as Baretta once put it- don't do the crime if you can't do the time!

Kalhoun

[matko]

Isn't the guys father from British Columbia?.........hmmmmmm

[shawner88]

If he had it sent to himself under a false name, how could he know that he would be available at the time of delivery to sign for it? Also, anyone sending it to him on his behalf would be taking a big risk. There are plenty of cameras in any post office to be able to find the sender (as he would be sending it at a post office if it were to go registered mail)...


Finally, don't give your address in Korea to friends back home that use drugs. You don't want anyone sending you a bonus with their "I miss you" package.

[Derrek]

I think it was addressed to some guy named Beckerson???

Tease, tease!

[William Beckerson]

I'm calling BS on poor little Mr. "Golly, I didnt know why these drugs would come to me."

[Kyrei]

[On the other hand]

[TECO]

This is the oldest trick in the book.

Not new at all. And highly plausible that that's what he was doing.

Lots of young Canadians have done/do this both at home and while living abroad.

I'd be interested in seeing what happens to him.

[indytrucks]

The notion that this poor fool's hagwon went to such great lengths to frame him up and cheat him of out what amounts to a few thousand dollars is absurd. I mean, I know hagwon owners don't have the greatest of reputations (especially Wonderland) but this guy's assertion that it was a set up is downright offensive.

Don't bend over for the soap, d!ckhead.

[Derrek]

[Ghostinthemachine]

Sorry Kyrie I don't get it.

I said

[Zed]

It's from a scene in Monty Python's Holy Grail.