Another suspected assailant in the kidnapping and murder case of a Korean man in Pattaya, Thailand has been apprehended in Cambodia.
The Korean National Police Agency revealed that they captured a Korean man in his 20s, referred to as A, on the 14th of the Korean time, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on charges of kidnapping and murdering a Korean tourist in Pattaya and abandoning the body.
Police confirmed that the fugitive A had left Thailand for Cambodia and worked in collaboration with police chiefs stationed in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar to track him down. They also received a red notice from Interpol regarding A.
After receiving intelligence that a Korean person believed to be A was staying at a lodge in Phnom Penh the previous day at 9 p.m., local police carried out a joint operation with the land police and arrested him at the lodging facility.
Our police plan to coordinate with the Cambodian and Thai police authorities regarding the domestic extradition schedule for A, who is detained by the Cambodian police.
Earlier, on the 12th local time, a Korean man was discovered dead in a black plastic container submerged 3 meters deep in a reservoir in Pattaya. The container was filled with cement and the man’s fingers were all cut off.
The deceased man, presumed to be a 30-year-old citizen of Gimhae, Gyeongsangnam-do, who entered Thailand on the 30th of last month, disappeared after visiting a pub in the Huai Kwang area of Bangkok on the 2nd of this month. The police are verifying the victim’s identity by sending DNA information of the family.
On the 7th, the mother of the deceased received a threatening phone call from a gangster saying, “If your son abandons drugs and causes harm, we will kill him unless you pay 3 million baht (equivalent to about 1.12 billion won).”
The reporting police identified that on the 3rd, two Korean men transported the deceased man in a car to Pattaya, picked up a black plastic container and a rope, and returned after spending about an hour at the reservoir. The police searched the reservoir, found the man’s body, and began tracking down three identified Korean suspects.
On the same day, A was arrested in a residential area in Jeongeup, North Jeolla Province at 7:46 p.m., and B, in his 20s, leaving only one of the three Korean suspects at large.
The police are collaborating with local authorities to track down the remaining suspect who is known to have fled to neighboring countries of Thailand.