Five in California crime ring plead guilty in Las Vegas robbery conspiracy
Five suspected members of a Korean organized crime ring in Southern California have pleaded guilty to staging what they thought was a home invasion of a Las Vegas stash house hiding 30 kilos of cocaine.
All five defendants were arrested at the Rio in January after a monthlong sting by FBI agents and Metropolitan Police Department officers. Authorities created the phony stash house in the undercover investigation dubbed Vegas Hold’em.
The five defendants — including ringleader James Arum Han, who told an undercover FBI agent that he had committed more than 100 home invasions in the past — pleaded guilty in federal court earlier this month to one felony count of conspiracy to commit robbery affecting interstate commerce.
The charge draws a maximum 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, but federal prosecutors are recommending that the defendants each receive reductions in their sentences because of the group plea deal. Three other drug and extortion charges against the defendants were dismissed, according to the plea agreements.
The defendants all are to be sentenced Oct. 6 before U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro.
The January sting, the result of an FBI-police task force formed to combat Asian organized crime in Las Vegas, led to the arrests of three more Southern California men suspected of pulling off home invasions there.
Lt. Dave Logue of the Police Department’s criminal intelligence section said Wednesday that the guilty pleas are an indication of the strength of the case authorities put together.
“It sends a message that we’re aware of what’s going on with respect to organized crime in our city,” he said. “There’ll be more to come.”
Han, 28, and the other four defendants arrested in Las Vegas — Rene Antwan Hypolite, 23, David Chon, 28, Howard Suh, 25, and Kyung Hoon Han, 35 — were secretly recorded in hotel rooms at the Rio plotting the stash house robbery with undercover operatives.
At a court hearing in January, Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Johnson said the Las Vegas community was fortunate that authorities were able to control the criminal activities of the group here, rather than letting it “wreak havoc” on valley residents.
Johnson, who oversees organized crime cases for the Nevada U.S. attorney’s office, said the group was looking for upscale homes to rob.
Authorities said they learned during the undercover investigation that some of the defendants also participated in Los Angeles-area home invasions, including one in November in Diamond Bar where the residents were stunned with Tasers and tied up as the suspects stole $300,000 in cash.
The three suspects later arrested in Southern California were charged in the Diamond Bar home invasion.
Contact reporter Jeff German at jgerman@review
journal.com or 702-380-8135.
