3 suspects arrested in Gangnam cryptocurrency murder case

Three people, who were arrested in suspected connection with the murder of a 48-year-old woman who lived in Seoul's Gangnam District, leave Seoul Suseo Police Station before being transported to the Seoul Central District Court to attend their arrest warrant hearings, Monday. Yonhap

Case believed to be related to cryptocurrency investments

By Jun Ji-hye

Three people were arrested on Monday in suspected connection with the recent murder of a 48-year-old woman who lived in Seoul's Gangnam District.

Judge Yoo Chang-hoon at the Seoul Central District Court said the decision was made to grant warrants for their arrests “due to concerns they are flight risks or could try to destroy evidence.”

According to police, the three were suspected of conspiring to force the woman into a vehicle in front of an apartment complex in Yeoksam-dong in Seoul's Gangnam District at 11:46 p.m. on Wednesday, and murdering her the following day in Daejeon, 140 kilometers south of Seoul. Her body was dumped on a mountain near Daecheong Dam on the outskirts of Daejeon.

The three were caught by police some 42 hours after the woman's abduction.

Police have secured a testimony that one of the three suspects, identified only by his surname Lee, invited the second suspect to participate in the crime, while the second one invited the third suspect.

The case is believed to be related to disputes between Lee and the victim over cryptocurrency investments, according to legal sources and media reports.

Lee, 35, who worked at a lawyer's office in Seoul, testified during the initial police questioning that he had suffered a loss of some 80 million won ($61,000) after investing money into the cryptocurrency company that the victim was working for.

As Lee is the only suspect personally acquainted with the victim and did not murder her on his own, police are not ruling out the possibility of murder by contract.

Lee paid some 7 million won to two other suspects, according to police.

Police requested a search and seizure warrant for the victim's bank account in order to check the scale of cryptocurrency held by her and whether the suspects had actually stolen anything.

"I am not at liberty to reveal the name of the cryptocurrency involved,” said a police officer from the Seoul Suseo Police Station handling the case. “Professional investigators specializing in cryptocurrency will be dispatched from the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency to enhance our investigation team.”

Previously, both Lee and the victim became involved in a separate criminal case, as the two faced a police investigation related to a cryptocurrency extortion case in February 2021.

According to legal sources, Lee and the victim, along with 16 other people, threatened an individual after the cryptocurrency they had bought plunged in value. They believed that the individual had manipulated the price.

The group extorted cryptocurrency from the individual to the amount of about 190 million won. But, neither Lee nor the recent murder victim received any of the stolen cryptocurrency, according to a police investigation at the time.

Police officers investigating the latest murder case believe that Lee was familiar with the scale of the victim's assets as he and the victim invested in the same cryptocurrency and were both involved in the 2021 criminal case.

In addition to the three, police booked another suspected accomplice, also Monday, while continuing to investigate the possibility that there could have been more accomplices involved in the crime. Police said they have secured testimony that there were two more accomplices.