Korea asks for cooperation of Japanese police over email bomb threats

The police's special operations unit and detection dogs arrive at Incheon City Hall to search for explosives, Wednesday, after an email was delivered, threatening to blow up the building. Yonhap

By Jun Ji-hye

Korean police have requested the cooperation of Japanese authorities for an investigation into emails, which contained threats to blow up some of Korea's most important public buildings and infrastructure such as the Supreme Court and Seoul City Hall. The emails are believed to have been sent from Japan, officials said Thursday.

According to police, the fifth such email was delivered at around midnight and threatened to blow up the Japanese School and Embassy in Seoul as well as the Supreme Court and subway stations.

The city halls of Daegu, Incheon, Seongnam, Anyang, Bucheon, Ansan and Goyang were also named as target facilities in the email.

The police said that the emails explained that bombs would detonate from 3:34 p.m. Friday to 2:07 p.m. Saturday, noting that the sender of the emails was stated as coming from a Japanese law firm with the same address as the one used for the previous bomb threats.

The first such email was delivered on July 7 to several people, including officials in the Seoul Metropolitan Government. It threatened to detonate a time bomb at a library in the capital if Rep. Lee Jae-myung, the chairman of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea, was not killed by 3:34 on Aug. 9.

The second email sent on Aug. 9 targeted the N Seoul Tower, the National Museum of Korea and the Japanese School and Embassy. On Monday the third email claimed that explosives had already been planted at a number of places in the Seoul city government building.

The fourth email was delivered on Wednesday with threats to detonate explosives at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, the city halls of Busan, Daegu, Suwon and Hwaseong and several universities, including Seoul National University.

The emails have led police to dispatch the special operations unit and detection dogs to search various places, but as of yet, no dangerous objects have been discovered.

“We confirmed that the IP address of the emails was traced back to Japan, so we asked for the cooperation of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department,” a police officer said.

According to multiple sources, the recent incident could be related to an email phishing scam currently prevalent in Japan.