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The Foreign Affairs Division of the Busan Metropolitan Police Agency arrested two Americans and booked 37 foreign language instructors without detention on Tuesday for fabricating their educational backgrounds or working in Korea as foreign language teachers without proper visas. In addition, 50 owners of foreign language institutes, including a 37 year-old identified by his family name of Lee, and 27 brokers were also booked.
According to police, the arrested Americans, a 51-year-old man identified as ¡°R,¡± and a 31-year-old ¡°M,¡± obtained forged diplomas and transcripts through brokers and Internet sites, came to Korea and worked as native English instructors in three to four institutes. R and M are both high school graduates. R had a bogus bachelor and master¡¯s degree from a well-known state university in the United States, and worked as an instructor in high schools and universities in Korea. M worked in private foreign language institutes in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province, and reportedly enjoyed improper relations with his female students.
Brokers, including a 33-year-old by the name of Cho, received W800,000 (about US$800) to W2 million in procurement fees for full-time instructors and W300,000 to W800,000 for part-time lecturers, and supplied unqualified foreign language teachers to 50 institutes nationwide. They took over W80 million in illegal profits.
The police uncovered these illicit dealings by hunting through over 30 online communities for foreign language instructors and degree forgery sites. There were not only unqualified Anglophone instructors from the United States, Canada, and Australia, but also those from Japan, China and Taiwan. It was discovered that the practice of employing uncertified foreign lecturers is taking place all across the country.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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