Ocampos denies link to arrested South Korean

MANILA, Philippines - Misamis Occidental Rep. Loreto Leo Ocampos yesterday strongly denied being a business associate of a South Korean fugitive captured by the International Police (Interpol) last week for various charges, including large-scale estafa in his home country.

Interpol and Bureau of Immigration (BI) agents re-arrested Hang Mok-you, 50, of Inchon, South Korea, at the Mt. Malindang Golf and Country Club in Bagakay, Ozamis four years after he bolted the BI jail in Taguig City.

Hang resurfaced last year in Malacañang in the company of Ocampos. The Korean was even seen shaking hands with President Aquino.

But Ocampos maintained he was not Hang’s business partner.

“I didn’t know his (negative) background. I met him in Ozamis after a round of golf. He constructed a hotel near the golf course and introduced himself to me as an investor,” Ocampos told The STAR.

“He joined me in Malacañang in one social event. He’s not my business partner, only a social acquaintance,” he added.

BI and Interpol officials said Hang came to the Philippines to escape prosecution in South Korea and subsequently established his business here.

Interpol agents, upon the request of their South Korean counterparts, arrested Hang in 2007 but he managed to escape. Hang is now back at the BI detention cell in Bicutan, Taguig awaiting deportation.