Bahk Eun-ji has been with The Korea Times since 2012, building a career across multiple desks. She began at the Business Desk, where she conducted in-depth interviews with key figures in Korea's corporate world. Later, she moved to the Politics & City Desk, focusing on education policy and social affairs. She later served as team leader of the digital content team, leading curation efforts on the newspaper’s homepage and reshaping print stories for social media audiences to enhance digital reach. Now back on the Politics Desk, she covers the National Assembly and the Ministry of National Defense, with a renewed focus on political developments.
Ex-staffer at US Embassy in Seoul given jail term for selling fake brand bags
By Bahk Eun-ji
A former employee of the United States' Embassy in Korea and his wife have received prison terms for selling counterfeit goods while they were working here.
According to a press release issued by the U.S. Department of Justice on March 18, Gene Leroy Thompson, 54, was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison and three year's supervised release, while his wife, Guojiao Becky Zhang, 40, was sentenced to three years of supervised release, including eight months of home detention. The couple were also fined $229,302.
Thompson, who was in charge of the information service at the U.S. Embassy in Korea, was found to have sold fake brand handbags through multiple e-commerce platforms from September 2017 to December 2019.
The United States Embassy building in Seoul / Yonhap
By Bahk Eun-ji
According to the court documents, the couple conspired with another person in Nisa, Oregon, where Thompson once lived, and sold 5,000 fake purses with fabricated tags of the popular U.S. handbag brand, Vera Bradley.
Thompson used his State Department computer at the embassy in Seoul to create a number of accounts on e-commerce platforms, including under aliases, after some platforms suspended their other accounts for their suspicious activities. His wife, Zhang, was in charge of operating the accounts, communicating with customers and storing the products in Oregon.
When the couple received orders through their accounts and sent the handbags to be stored in Oregon, the co-conspirator in Oregon shipped the items to purchasers across the U.S.