Oppa, crime style

If only the Korean wave brought Cebuanos only things as harmless as trade benefits and rapper Psy’s hit piece “Gangnam Style.”

This, unfortunately, is not the case, as shown by two recent headlining news stories featuring Korean nationals.

In the first, police rescued a Korean businessman in Cebu City in a kidnap-for-ransom case, which led to the Oct. 25 arrest of another Korean trader who allegedly wanted to collect on a P4 million gambling debt.

Last Wednesday, Lee Dong Gun, 46, and Jung Ha Bok, 40 survived gunshots fired at their car as it left Pacific Villa subdivision past 8 a.m. in barangay Pajac, Lapu-Lapu City.

Good thing no innocent bystander got hit by the men involved in the foiled ambush, though bystanders may not be luckier next time rival Korean entrepreneurs decide to factor blood into their business dealings.

We can take little if any comfort from the fact that the two incidents are most likely, according to policemen, manifestations of Korean infighting.

Who is to say that the seamier side of their entrepreneurship was not enabled by or does not indicate the presence of more virulent criminals in Cebu?

At the same time, will a call for our Korean guests to behave when they are here apply when in fact those who have been making mischief are, in the words of local police, outsiders and therefore deaf to such a call?

The unscrupulous few among the Koreans who may or may not be in cahoots with local crime rings may not be powerful enough yet to wreak havoc on the relationship between Cebuanos and their at least 20,000 Korean guests.

But officials of the two peoples need not wait for a deterioration in relations before they explore ways of cooperating to fight crime.

They have to prevent Koreans with criminal backgrounds from ever finding their way here.

They have to net local criminal elements who may be all too eager to do the dastardly work of blackhearted foreigners as long as they have pockets deep enough  yield pay dirt to their errand boys.