"Frozen Storage Murder" Case Referred to Prosecution... Suspect Transferred Without Public Disclosure

Suspect in His 30s Transferred by Prisoner Transport Bus
Police to Investigate Possible Accomplices and Gift Certificate Fraud

The owner of a café in his 30s, who is suspected of causing the death of a woman in her 60s by locking her in a freezer at a café in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, is scheduled to face a prosecutorial investigation.

According to the legal community on September 14, the Paju Police Station referred the frozen warehouse murder case to the prosecution on the very same day. As a result, the suspect, known as Mr. A, the café owner in his 30s, was transferred from the detention center at Ilsandongbu Police Station, where he had been held, to the prosecution.

On the afternoon of the 14th, a transport vehicle carrying the suspect of the frozen warehouse murder was moving from Ilsandong Police Station in Goyang-si, Gyeonggi-do to the Uijeongbu District Prosecutors' Office Goyang Branch. Photo by Yonhap News Agency

At around 1 p.m. that day, Mr. A boarded the prisoner transport bus while the shutter at the integrated investigative duty room's parking garage was down. He was seated in the very back seat of the bus and was not exposed to nor questioned by reporters during the transfer. Reports say he kept his body lowered to avoid exposure. The bus quickly exited through the police station's main gate and headed for the prosecutor’s office.

Even during his initial arrest, Mr. A’s face was not exposed to the media. The police have reportedly not disclosed Mr. A’s personal details separately, citing the ongoing investigation. This transport of the suspect is also said to have been conducted in accordance with the relevant guidelines.

Mr. A is accused of luring the victim, a woman in her 60s whom he did not previously know, to his café on the morning of September 3, locking her in a freezer set below zero degrees Celsius for about 27 hours, and thereby causing her death.

The police believe that Mr. A brought Ms. B, the victim, to Paju through an intermediary, Mr. C—a so-called "gift certificate broker"—for the purpose of engaging in a large-scale transaction of gift certificates to convert them into cash, an act commonly known as "gift certificate laundering." It has been reported that Mr. A currently owes more than 1 billion won in debt.

The police formed an investigation team consisting of 17 members, including three violent crime teams from the Criminal Division at Paju Police Station, and plan to continue the investigation into the possible involvement of accomplices as well as possible fraud related to gift certificates.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.