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| Three suspects in a recent murder case of a 48-year-old woman who lived in Seoul’s Gangnam District leave Seoul Suseo Police Station to head to the Seoul Central District Court to attend their arrest warrant hearing, Monday. Yonhap |
By Jun Ji-hye
A recent murder case of a 48-year-old woman who lived in Seoul’s Gangnam District is believed to be related to disputes between the victim and one of the suspects over cryptocurrency investments, according to legal sources and media reports, Monday.
One of the three suspects, identified only by his surname Lee, reportedly lost money after having bought cryptocurrency. The victim, who worked for a cryptocurrency issuer, took part in the investments as well.
Lee, 35, who worked at a lawyer’s office in Seoul, is the only suspect personally acquainted with the victim. It is alleged he invited two other suspects to participate in the crime.
In addition to the three, police booked another suspected accomplice, also Monday, while continuing to investigate the possibility that there could have been more accomplices involved in the crime. Police said they have secured testimony that there were two more accomplices.
The three were suspected of conspiring to force the woman into a vehicle in front of an apartment complex in Yeoksam-dong in Seoul’s Gangnam District at 11:46 p.m. on Wednesday.
Among the three suspects, two confessed to murdering her the following day in Daejeon, 140 kilometers south of Seoul, and dumping her body on a mountain near Daecheong Dam on the outskirts of Daejeon.
The three were caught by police some 42 hours after the case occurred.
According to police, one of the suspects identified only by his surname Yeon, testified that the three had committed the crime to steal cryptocurrency owned by the victim.
Following this testimony, police requested a search and seizure warrant for the victim’s bank account in order to check the scale of cryptocurrency held by her and whether the suspects had actually stolen anything.
Previously, both Lee and the victim became involved in a separate criminal case, as the two faced a police investigation related to a cryptocurrency extortion case in February 2021.
According to legal sources, Lee and the victim, along with 16 other people, threatened an individual after the cryptocurrency they had bought plunged in value. They believed that the individual had manipulated the price.
The group extorted cryptocurrency from the individual to the amount of about 190 million won ($144,000). But, neither Lee nor the recent murder victim received any of the stolen cryptocurrency, according to a police investigation at the time.
Police officers investigating the latest murder case believe that Lee was familiar with the scale of the victim’s assets as he and the victim invested in the same cryptocurrency and were both involved in the 2021 criminal case.
During initial questioning by police, Lee refused to talk about his relationship with the victim.
“I am not at liberty to reveal the name of the cryptocurrency involved,” said a police officer from the Seoul Suseo Police Station handling the case. “Professional investigators specializing in cryptocurrency will be dispatched from the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency to enhance our investigation team.”