A Korean-American man in his 40s from Maine has been arrested and charged in an attempted murder-for-hire plot.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested Hyunkook Korsiak, a 41-year-old man in Tarrytown, N.Y., the day before he attempted to carry out a murder-for-hire plot for $50,000, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
Korsiak traveled more than 300 miles from Maine to kill the target in midtown Manhattan that day, prosecutors said.
According to prosecutors, the FBI obtained communications from the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) in which Korsiak expressed a desire to “kill for money” and conducted an entrapment sting to apprehend the suspect beginning last August.
He also had a conviction from 2017 for stealing from a licensed firearms dealer, prosecutors said. Posing as members of a transnational criminal organization, FBI agents attempted to make contact with Korsiak beginning last December and met with him several times in New York-Boston area, according to the indictment.
The agents solicited Korsiak to accept a job to kill a fictitious businessman who was staying at a Midtown Manhattan hotel.
According to prosecutors, Korsiak told the undercover FBI agents that he planned to shoot the target in his car on a Manhattan street and requested a latex mask in the guise of an elderly man, a weapon silencer, and a police uniform.
The complaint said, and Korsiak agreed to saying “You just tell me where to go and what to do and you know I can make that happen.”
Korsiak was arrested by undercover FBI agents on Aug. 8 as he was on his way to commit the crime. He was found to be in possession of AR-15 rifles, 9MM pistols, a bullet-resistant vest and hundreds of rounds of various caliber ammunition.
Korsiak was charged with solicitation to commit murder, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years.
BY SHIM JONGMIN, JANG SUAH
