The suspects arrested by police for making a false report about planting an explosive at Seoul Children's Grand Park in Gwangjin District last year turned out to be habitual offenders in their teens.
The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency's cyber investigation unit said on the 28th that it had sent A, an 18-year-old operator of a "Discord" server who made the false bomb report, to prosecutors under arrest. B, a 19-year-old server participant who joined A in the false report, was also referred to prosecutors without detention. B was reportedly known as a so-called "prank call pro."
Discord is a messenger program specialized for games that allows users to create chat rooms and voice channels to talk with others. Using this, servers (virtual communities) on various topics have recently become active. It is known that anti-government protesters in Nepal also coalesced through Discord.
On the Discord server, A is accused of leading a broadcast on Sept. 30 last year falsely reporting that an explosive had been planted at Seoul Children's Grand Park, and of soliciting donations from chat participants, obstructing the performance of official duties by deception and violating the Minor Offenses Act. B is also suspected of obstructing the performance of official duties by deception by falsely reporting to the Hwayang Police Box with jurisdiction that "an explosive has been planted inside Children's Grand Park."
Because of their false report, all available personnel of the Gwangjin Police Station at the time, along with the police special assault team and riot police—88 officers in total—50 fire authorities, and 2 district office employees, 140 people in all, were dispatched. Authorities searched the site for 12 hours until 8:09 a.m. the next day, and access to the park was restricted during that time.
In July, police launched an investigation based on intelligence that there was a Discord server placing various false reports and prank calls to public institutions, livestreaming them, and pocketing donations.
In fact, in addition to the Children's Grand Park case, A was additionally found to have obstructed official duties by making false reports such as, "The next door is very noisy. I can hear crying," or by tapping a mobile phone "tok tok" like Morse code to stage it as if it were an emergency.
A police official said, "We will make arrests the principle in investigating false reports that cause significant social harm, and will also consider filing civil damages claims."