Police have sought an arrest warrant for a teenager who made bomb threats against major corporations including Kakao and Naver. The suspect had earlier been sent to prosecutors on charges of threatening to kill the president.
Bundang Police Station in Gyeonggi said on the 25th that it applied for a pretrial detention warrant for high school student A on charges of public intimidation.
From Dec. 15 last year to Jan. 5 this year, A is accused of posting terror threats online a total of 14 times against Kakao, Naver, Samsung Electronics, KT, Toss Bank, and Seoul Station.
Using foreign IP addresses by bypassing a virtual private network (VPN) and writing under others' names, the person threatened to blow up the headquarters buildings of the victim companies or to cause harm to the bodies of their chief executives. The person also demanded that large sums be wired to a specific account.
A, who had name recognition on the messenger app "Discord," was found to have carried out these false reports ("swatting") as retaliation against users with whom there were internal conflicts.
Of the 14 crimes, 12 were committed with this motive, and the remaining two were each carried out at the request of teenager B, who was arrested on the 15th of last month on charges of posting bomb threats against KT while demanding 10 billion won, it was found.
In addition, A is also accused of posting a death threat against President Lee Jae-myung. In relation to this, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency sent A and B without detention on the 24th on charges of intimidation and obstruction of official duties by deceit.
The two are accused of writing on the 119 safety report center's online bulletin board on Sept. 4 last year that they would kill the president.
Regarding this, the Seoul agency even formed a task force and investigated for months, and had applied for a pretrial detention warrant for A, but due to the prosecution's rejection of the warrant, it was reported to have announced the previous day that A was sent to prosecutors without detention after questioning.
However, Bundang Police Station uncovered an additional 14 swatting cases committed by A against large corporations and applied again for a pretrial detention warrant.
A detention warrant hearing for A is scheduled to be held on the 26th at the Seongnam branch of the Suwon District Court. Whether A will be detained is expected to be decided in the evening of the same day.
A denies all charges. A police official said, "The suspect has consistently denied the charges despite clear evidence, so if the warrant is dismissed, there is a strong risk of evidence destruction," and added, "This suspect is presumed to be the 'last main culprit' of the swatting cases that continued from last year to this year."
Swatting crimes that had been frequent on Discord have been decreasing as those involved, including A and B, were arrested in succession. The only swatting cases remaining under the jurisdiction of the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency are posts of bomb threats on the 12th and 16th of this month targeting Kakao, Samsung Electronics, and Hyundai Department Store.
Police also believe these were carried out by A and plan to conduct a supplementary investigation as soon as the detention decision is made. In addition, they plan to calculate the scale of the damage caused by A's crimes and seek compensation for damages.