Korean Mafia in Cebu: Resort exec worry over ‘wrong’ report

CEBU, Philippines - A Korean businessman in Lapu-Lapu City has expressed concern over continuing reports about a "mafia" from their country operating in Cebu.

Son Byung Cheon, executive director of Mactan Isla Resort and Casino, said he was worried as this would drive away tourists as they are becoming more concerned for their safety in Cebu.

"We are inviting Koreans in our country to visit Cebu, to visit Mactan, but our agents there are also worried because of the wrong information about mafia," Cheon told reporters Thursday night.

Cheon, who is also a member of the Peace and Advisory Council of the Lapu-Lapu City government, said the story about Korean mafia already reached South Korea, which bothered them because many Koreans have already booked in the resort.

"We are afraid that our market will be affected because they are asking for the safety of their guests in coming to Cebu. They might cancel their bookings," Cheon said, adding that 90 percent of their guests in the resort are Koreans.

He also denied reports that came out in national television that the disputed ownership of Mactan Isla Resort and Casino, one of the biggest resorts in Lapu-Lapu City, has something to do with the Korean Mafia.

To recall, Korean Jungkwan Park and Seung Won Yang owned 53,000 shares each or 47 percent of the resort in 2009. But reportedly in 2014, the two of them were “unilaterally removed” as stockholders of the corporations owning the resort and their shares of stocks “transferred to another person without their consent.”

Thereafter, cases were filed against them in different courts, thereby depriving them of their right to become stockholders in the corporations.

Yang was jailed in January 20, 2015 because of the cases, and a year and a half later, Yang was found dead with a noose around his neck, allegedly a victim of suicide.

But according to Cheon, the disputed ownership was an internal problem and far from the so-called Korean mafia.

"It’s a corporate dispute. It's (an) internal problem only," he said.

The resort has 350 employees, most of them from Cebu.

Earlier, no less than President Rodrigo Duterte revealed that a “Korean mafia” is operating in the country and is “strongest” in Cebu, where it runs drug and prostitution rings.

But Chief Superintendent Noli Taliño, Police Regional Office-7 director, said that based on his initial discussions with other law enforcement agencies, they have not monitored any operation of a Korean mafia in Cebu. (FREEMAN)