A man was arrested Monday in connection to an illegal game room operation in Hutto, but it was two prior arrests in a months-long investigation that ultimately led to his capture.
According to the arrest affidavit for Chong Won Pak, 53, police received a crime stopper tip in April of an illegal gambling game room located on 602 Provines Drive in Austin. The tip stated that the game room was fenced in for security, appeared to be monitored by surveillance cameras and people were selling drugs there.
Police said they had received similar information from a confidential informant. The informant said the game room was recently opened by a Korean male named Kenny, who was later identified as 41-year-old Kuk Seo.
The affidavit states that a check of utilities on 602 Provines showed the location to be under the name of King McCoy, who was previously arrested in connection to a game room on 11331 North Lamar Boulevard.
Police said they conducted surveillance on the suspects for several weeks and later obtained enough information to execute a search warrant on the game room. During the search, 23 game machine motherboards and more than $5,000 in cash were seized. McCoy and Seo were arrested that night, reports show.
During questioning, the affidavit states that Seo admitted to working at the illegal game room for a percentage of the profits with McCoy and an additional suspect, Maria Galindo.
The affidavit states that McCoy said an Asian male known to him as “Joe” asked him to work at the game room on North Lamar Boulevard in December, and that he had known the man for over a year and worked for his game rooms previously.
Police later identified “Joe” as Pak, placed a tracker on his vehicle and confirmed its travels to the game room on Lamar Boulevard.
According to Pak’s arrest affidavit, McCoy also stated that Pak told him to find a new building to open up another game room and put the utilities under his name. McCoy located the building on Provines Street and proceeded to rent it with city utilities under his name, police said, which was verified through the City of Austin utilities database.
On Monday, police executed a search warrant of Pak’s residence on 1217 August Bend Drive in Hutto, Texas, where they seized $724,736, video game machine motherboards and tally sheets for the illegal game rooms.
According to the affidavit, Pak admitted to owning and operating the game room at 11331 N. Lamar Boulevard in Austin only and minimized his involvement with any other game rooms under investigation.
He was charged with money laundering, a first-degree felony.
As of Thursday evening, Pak, McCoy and Seo were not listed as inmates currently in custody in Travis County.
