The ‘Grossly Negligent’ Brit who sent student to his doom in North Korea
Tour operator hosted sleazy st ag parties as jailed American under his care lay in a coma
A BRITISH businessman responsible for the North Korean tour that ended with the jailing and death of US student Otto Warmbier hosted sleazy holidays in Southeast Asia while the American lay in a coma.
Gareth Johnson, whose company Young Pioneer Tours has been criticised for failing to protect the 22year- old, also runs GN ( Gross Negligence) Tours, which arranges tours and stag parties in the Philippines, this newspaper can reveal.
Weeks after Warmbier was sentenced to 15 years’ hard labour, Johnson left his wife and five-yearold daughter at their home in China and flew to the Philippines. At his parties there, held in red light districts, Westerners pay impoverished women to join them for the evening as dancers and guests.
While frantic diplomatic efforts were made in the US for Warmbier’s release, sources say Johnson appeared indifferent to his plight
‘They advertise it as the safest tour ever’
as he enjoyed a hedonistic, heavydrinking life in the grubby Philippines sex resort of Angeles City.
However, Johnson insisted that his business partners in China followed the case closely and it had ‘weighed heavily on my mind’.
War mbi e r was arrested at Pyongyang airport in January 2016 for allegedly stealing a propaganda poster from the hotel in which he was staying. He was sentenced in March last year but fell into a coma in prison shortly afterwards.
The student was flown back to the US on June 14 and died in hospital five days later without regaining consciousness. North Korean officials claim he contracted botulism the day after he was sentenced.
At a press conference heldd before his son’s death, Fredd Warmbier criticised Young Pioneer Tours, saying: ‘This Chinese company has slick ads on the internet, claiming no American ever gets detained. Otto is a young adventure- seeking kid.d. They lure Americans. And that’s ’s what happened to my son.
‘They advertise it as the safestst tour ever. But they provide fodder for the North Koreans. They ey took him hostage. And the outcome is self-evident.’
Johnson, 36, whose parents live in Rochester, Kent, has courted controversy over his visits with Young Pioneer Tours, which he set up with his Chinese wife in Xi’an, China, in 2008. In an interview, he boasted of nearly losing his foot after stepping off a moving train in North Korea while drunk on soju, a potent Korean liquor.
Adam Pitt, a customer on a 2013 trip to North Korea, claimed that Johnson almost got a tour party det a i ned when he drunkenly s stuffed money into the hand of an official checking tourists’ cameras for unauthori ised images on a train out o of the hermit state. ‘Gareth was pretty much blind drunk the whole time we were in the country,’ said Pitt in an interview. Young Pioneer Tours later denied his claims. Johnson confirmed to The Mail on Sunday yesterday that he left Pyongyang a few days after Warmbier’s arrest and has not returned to North Korea since. His second company, GN Tours, promises its all-male customers ‘what goes on tour stays on tour’ and has a website full of images of bikini- clad Fili pinas, offering ‘beaches, babes, bullets and booze (all cheap)’. Customers can book private pool parties with the website boasting: ‘ Anything goes at these events... Make your experience extra fun with high quality entertainers available to party with you for US$110 (£86).’
An expat acquaintance of Johnson
‘The impression was that he didn’t give a damn’
in the Philippines said: ‘Gareth is a typical loud, drunken Brit who doesn’t seem to take anything seriously. He was over in the Philippines soon after the US student was jailed and the impression I got was that he didn’t give a damn.
‘His actions in the aftermath of the arrest tell you all you need to know. There’s only one person that Gareth Johnson gives a damn about, and that’s Gareth Johnson. His businesses exist for his lifestyle, not the other way around.’
Another source said: ‘His company takes guests to VIP rooms of hotels with groups of girls. But he’s treading a fine line because if you advertise those sorts of services, it is illegal under Philippine law.’
Despite claiming to have offices in Xi’an and Beijing, Young Pioneer Tours operates largely out of a North Korean-themed bar called DMZ i n Yangshuo, southwest China, where Johnson lives.
In an email yesterday, Johnson said: ‘[GN Tours] occasionally provides dancers and hostesses/waitresses for bachelor parties and events [but] does not sell or offer any services of a sexual nature.’
He said that while he was in North Korea at the time of Warmbier’s arrest, he was with a separate tour group. He added: ‘ I do not believe my presence had anything to do with his detention nor that my behaviour during the tour was reckless or irresponsible.’