A person in their 30s, identified as A and detained on suspicion of confining a woman in her 60s in a cafe freezer warehouse in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, until she died, had asked before the incident that the gift card appraiser be replaced with a woman, police said. Police concluded that A had planned everything from luring the victim to confining her, and referred A to prosecutors on a charge of murdering a person A had lured.
At a briefing on the 14th, the Gyeonggi Paju Police Station said A "created a fictitious gift card seller and spoke as if that person wanted a woman as the gift card appraiser, and the appraiser was replaced on the 2nd of this month." The person originally set to appraise the gift cards was identified as B, a gift card broker who drove the victim to Paju. B has been booked on suspicion of forging securities.
The police investigation found that B and the victim were acquaintances. Police also confirmed that A had not named the victim specifically when requesting the replacement. Police believe the victim had never appraised gift cards or done similar work before this case. "An analysis of the evidence collected confirmed that the victim did not understand specifically what role she was supposed to play in appraising the gift cards," police said.
Police believe A planned the operation in advance, up to the stages of luring and confining the victim. According to police, A first contacted a container company in Busan last month to inquire about renting a freezer warehouse and signed a one-month lease on the 25th of the same month. "We have confirmed circumstances indicating that A began preparing the freezer warehouse in mid-July this year," police said.
Police said further investigation is needed to determine whether A also planned to kill the victim. Still, because A is accused of luring her into the freezer warehouse, confining her there for 27 hours and lowering the interior temperature below freezing, causing her to die of hypothermia, police referred A to prosecutors on a charge of murdering a person A had lured, keeping open the possibility of murder through willful negligence. Police also applied charges of forging securities and using forged securities, citing the counterfeit gift cards and their presentation to a third party.
Police currently believe A's motive was financial gain through the sale of counterfeit gift cards. A had previously attempted to sell counterfeit gift cards once in July this year, but the attempt fell through when no buyer emerged.
