Illegal Broker Arrested and Sent to Prosecutors for Years of Withholding Wages and Assaulting Crew Member with Intellectual Disability

A job broker who forced a sailor with intellectual disabilities to work for several years without properly paying wages and pocketed illegal brokerage fees has been handed over to the prosecution.

Tongyeong Maritime Police Station in South Gyeongsang Province announced on the 26th that it had arrested and referred a man in his 50s, identified as A, an unregistered crew broker, on charges including quasi-fraud and violation of the Employment Security Act for exploiting the wages of sailors with disabilities over several years.

Three others, including B, who conspired with A to embezzle advance payments from fishing vessel owners, were referred without detention on fraud charges.

Tongyeong Coast Guard is approaching to rescue the affected crew members.
[Photo by Tongyeong Coast Guard]

According to the Tongyeong Coast Guard, from 2019 to June 2022, A is suspected of embezzling 130 million won in wages from one sailor with intellectual disabilities and two sailors with borderline intellectual disabilities, and pocketing a total of over 400 million won including illegal brokerage fees.

Operating an unregistered crew brokerage in Busan, A approached victims who had worked as sailors for a long time in places like Tongyeong, deceiving them by promising higher earnings, bringing them to the brokerage, and sending them to work as trap fishing vessel crew members.

Claiming that the sailors had low intellectual abilities, A told vessel owners to give him the money directly, promising to distribute it to the crew, and then pocketed the wages.

He then made excuses such as deducting accommodation and meal costs or citing economic downturns to avoid properly paying wages.

The illegal brokerage fees A received for introducing 140 sailors, including those with intellectual disabilities and regular sailors, to trap fishing vessels amounted to about 100 million won.

In collusion with sailors B, C, and D, A also deceived vessel owners by pretending they would work as crew, received 30 million won in advance payments for one-year contracts, and then left the vessels without notice, repeating this scheme four times and sharing 120 million won among themselves.

The affected crew members are working on the fishing boat.
[Photo by Tongyeong Coast Guard]

The victims, who were supposed to receive an average of 3 million won, actually received only 1 million won despite working about 20 hours a day on board.

Among the fishing vessel owners who received crew members from A, some did not dock at land even after returning to port after fishing operations during a five-month period, in order to prevent crew members from leaving.

When sailors, unable to endure the harsh labor, returned home after hospital treatment, A sent people to bring them back to the fishing vessels to continue working.

It was also revealed that when the contract period of the victimized sailors ended, A sent taxis to bring them back to the brokerage, kept them under control until they were sent to work on other vessels, and assaulted them for not obeying his orders.

The shipowner is taking the affected crew members back to their residences.
[Photo by Tongyeong Coast Guard Station, video provided]

Of the 400 million won in criminal proceeds A obtained from crew wages and illegal brokerage fees, about 230 million won was spent on living expenses and entertainment, while the remaining 170 million won was squandered on illegal online gambling over 1,403 transactions.

The Tongyeong Coast Guard, in cooperation with the Gyeongsangnam-do Center for Supporting People with Developmental Disabilities, rescued the victimized sailors and is protecting them after handing them over to their families.

Chief Investigator Lee Jeongseok said, "We will expand investigations into human rights violations and wage exploitation targeting socially vulnerable groups such as sailors with intellectual disabilities or those without local ties."