Police investigate missing 680 million won from rental warehouse

[Anchor]

A warehouse management employee has been arrested for stealing tens of billions of won in cash that a customer was storing in a rental warehouse in downtown Seoul.

The police have seized 4 billion won of the stolen money, raising many questions about why such a large amount of cash was kept in a rental warehouse.

Reporter Choi Min-young has the story.

[Report]

Boxes stacked to the height of an adult.

When the boxes are opened, bundles of 50,000 won bills spill out.

40 billion won in cash.

This money was stolen and moved by warehouse management employee A from a rental warehouse in downtown Seoul.

[Kim Ha-cheol/Head of the 2nd Investigation Division, Seoul Songpa Police Station: "A report was received on Sept. 27 stating that 6.8 billion won in cash stored in a rental warehouse had been stolen."]

On Sept. 12, person A entered the rental warehouse he managed using an administrator password and stole the money over a period of about five hours.

He moved the money to another warehouse in the same building rented under his wife's name and, two days later, hid it outside the warehouse at his home and other locations.

He filled the travel bag that originally contained the money with A4 paper.

When the victim realized the money was missing and reported it to the police, A moved the money to a building in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province on Sept. 28.

The police arrested A three weeks after the crime and seized the money.

However, there are many questions.

First, the victim reported that 6.8 billion won was missing, but the seized amount is only 4 billion won.

Additionally, A claimed he accidentally saw the money while entering the management warehouse, but it is questionable how he knew such a large sum was in a private rental warehouse with strict security.

[Company Representative/Voice Altered: "You can assume that such cases (where the manager enters the warehouse) do not happen, and if necessary, it is only possible after obtaining the customer's consent..."]

The reason why an individual kept such a large amount of money in a warehouse, as well as the source of the funds, has not yet been revealed.

It is also suspicious that A left a note saying, "Even if you know who I am, pretend you don't, and I won't say anything either," after stealing the money.

The police plan to investigate the source of the funds before returning the seized money to the victim.

This is KBS News, Choi Min-young.