What Was the 'Gift Certificate Broker's Role?…Unanswered Questions

[Anchor]

However, even with today's police announcement on the 14th, many questions surrounding this case remain unanswered. In particular, attention is focused on whether the gift certificate broker, who introduced the female victim to the suspect Shin and drove her to Paju, knew about the crime in advance, and if so, to what extent they helped.

Reporting continues from reporter Je Hui-won.

[Reporter]

Police have uncovered circumstances indicating that Shin, a cafe owner in Paju, attempted a gift certificate transaction back in July.

The attempt fell through because no buyer appeared, and on August 7th, Shin was introduced to a gift certificate broker, A, by a third party, according to police explanations.

Police investigation results revealed that Shin pretended there was a "virtual seller" during the gift certificate transaction process, acting as a proxy himself.

It was also investigated that the day before the crime, Shin lied to broker A, saying, "The gift certificate seller I scouted wants a woman as the transaction counterpart."

Police are also investigating whether the prospective buyer who tried to purchase the forged gift certificates worth tens of billions of KRW that appeared in this case actually had the intent to buy and the funds.

Police believe that the female victim, who had no prior acquaintance with Shin, was not clearly aware of what role she was supposed to play on the day of the incident.

It has been confirmed that before and after the crime, Shin used the female victim's mobile phone to make video calls with broker A from locations such as a refrigerated warehouse, and the purpose of these calls is another point that needs to be further clarified.

The 500,000 KRW forged department store gift certificates that Shin commissioned to be printed had "for filming" written in small print, but police explained that it was difficult to notice the forgery at a glance because it was covered with a paper band.

Police have booked broker A on charges related to securities forgery, namely gift certificate forgery, and are intensively interrogating whether broker A knew about the gift certificate forgery in advance.

(Video Editing: Lee Sang-min, Design: Lee Jun-ho, Kim Ye-ji)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.