▲ Dashboard camera footage capturing the incident at the time
One of the foreign nationals who blocked a moving car on a road in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, late at night and threatened the driver has been apprehended following a police manhunt.
The Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency's metropolitan investigation unit and the Icheon Police Station announced today (October 17) that they have emergency-arrested a 21-year-old daily laborer of Kazakhstan nationality, surnamed A, on charges including special intimidation and property damage, and plan to apply for an arrest warrant.
A is suspected of teaming up with an acquaintance of the same nationality, a 25-year-old surnamed B, on July 29 at around 11:40 p.m. to chase down and block a passenger car carrying a man in his 30s and a passenger on a road in Haewol-ri, Majang-myeon, Icheon, before threatening them by kicking the front of the vehicle.
At the time, the license plate of the suspect vehicle captured on the victim's dashcam was unidentifiable by the naked eye or even through a National Forensic Service appraisal. However, police who initiated a reinvestigation last month succeeded in partially restoring the license plate numbers through a precise analysis by the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency's forensic unit.
Police narrowed down potential vehicles by combining the partially restored numbers and car models, conducted inquiries, and finally identified the suspect vehicle's license plate number.
They then tracked social media accounts commonly used by foreigners trading vehicles while staying in South Korea, securing a sales post and contact information for the suspect vehicle.
By analyzing CCTV footage around the living radius of the actual phone number user, the police identified A and tracked his movements for three days before arresting A at around 8:25 p.m. yesterday (October 16) while he was having dinner with acquaintances at a multi-family housing unit near Anseong.
The vehicle used in the crime was also seized.
During police questioning, A reportedly stated, "On the day of the incident, I was on my way back after failing to sell the car to another foreigner, and I chased the victim's car mistaking it for the vehicle of the prospective buyer."
It was found that the accomplice B, who committed the crime together, was already caught for a separate Immigration Control Act violation (illegal stay) and forcibly deported early this month.
In the initial stages of the case, police faced difficulties identifying the suspects, leading it to be temporarily classified as an unsolved case in mid-last month. However, following controversy, the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency and the Icheon Police Station resumed the investigation on September 21 and have been conducting a joint manhunt.
Once the arrest warrant for A is issued, police plan to further investigate the exact circumstances of the crime and any additional offenses, while reviewing international judicial cooperation procedures such as a Red Notice for the accomplice B who has already left the country.
(Photo: Capture from YouTube 'Han Moon-chul TV', Yonhap News)
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