I was caught in a police raid on a massage parlor in Korea — I'm US military. What happens on the Korean side, and does my command find out?

If nothing sexual occurred, you have not committed the Korean offense, and a raid record with your name on it is not the same as a case against you. But you signed a document you did not understand, in a place the police were raiding for prostitution, and that document is now the first thing on the file. The Korean side proceeds as a criminal investigation with you as a potential suspect; under SOFA, Korea has primary jurisdiction over off-duty conduct, and a prostitution case is one Korea sometimes retains and sometimes waives. Your command will learn of it through the military police liaison process, which is triggered by the arrest record rather than by anything you do. The thing to do before the "contact" is to fix what you signed.

What this is under Korean law

Purchasing sexual services is an offense under the Act on the Punishment of Arrangement of Sexual Traffic (성매매처벌법, seongmaemae cheobeol-beop) — up to one year's imprisonment or a fine of up to KRW 3 million, and the same for the seller. The offense requires a sexual act or its agreed purchase; being present in a business that offers it, receiving a lawful massage, or being on the premises during a raid is not the offense. The police in a raid record every person present and take statements; the statements, the establishment's records, and the staff's accounts are what distinguish customers of the illegal service from those who were not.

A conviction is a criminal record and, for foreign nationals, is among the grounds the Immigration Office may weigh; for a servicemember under SOFA, the immigration side is not the pressure point — the command is.

SOFA: jurisdiction and notification

Under the US–Korea SOFA, an off-duty offense against Korean law by a servicemember falls under Korea's primary jurisdiction; the US may request a waiver. Prostitution cases involving servicemembers have been both waived and retained; the trend in recent years has been toward Korea handling them, in part because the offense is treated as a public-order matter. If retained, the case runs through Korean police and prosecutor; a first-offense purchase case, where the evidence supports it, typically ends in a fine or a suspension of indictment (기소유예, giso yuye) conditioned on an education program. If waived, the Korean case ends and the matter is yours and the command's.

Notification: Korean police report the detention of SOFA personnel to the military police liaison, which is how your command learns of it. That has likely already happened. Under US military regulations, patronizing prostitution is itself an offense and a raid record can trigger administrative or disciplinary review regardless of the Korean outcome. That is why the Korean case matters even if it is waived: a Korean file that records "present, no offense" is a different document from one that records a signed admission.

What you signed

A statement signed in Korean without interpretation is a real problem and a fixable one. You were entitled to an interpreter under Korean law and, as SOFA personnel, to notification and the presence of a US representative at questioning; a document signed under neither is challengeable. The correction is made through counsel, promptly, in writing: a notice to the investigating station that the statement was taken without interpretation, that you did not understand its contents, and that you will give a statement with counsel and a qualified interpreter. Waiting for the "contact" leaves the signed document as your only word on the file.

Your situation as a foreign national

A departure suspension is unlikely for SOFA personnel in a case of this kind, but confirm before any off-peninsula travel. Consular notification is replaced, in practice, by the SOFA notification channel. MEGA X handles the Korean criminal case; the command side is the installation's legal office's, and the two should be coordinated so that what you say in one is consistent with the other.

What to do now, and what not to do

Do not return to the area or contact the establishment. Do not discuss the raid with unit members beyond what the command formally asks. Do write down, today, exactly what happened — arrival, payment, what service was described, what occurred, when the raid began — for your lawyer only. Do send, through counsel, the notice about the statement. Do not give any further statement to Korean police without counsel and an interpreter, and prepare your account with your lawyer before you do. Speak to the installation legal office about the command process, and tell them you have retained Korean counsel.

From a former police investigator's perspective

In a raid, police record everyone and sort them afterward; the sorting is done from the establishment's own records — room assignments, payments, staff statements — and from what each customer said and signed on the night. A customer who paid a massage price, was found clothed on a table, and whose signed statement — once corrected — says so, is a name that drops out of the case. A customer whose only statement is a Korean form he did not read is a name that stays on it until someone speaks for him. The correction is a letter; send it before the investigator's call.

Contact us before the police contact you — text consultation or +82-2-522-3959.

— MEGA X Law Firm Korea, Criminal Defense Team