Paju Café Displays “Closed Today” Notice After Woman’s Body Found; Counterfeit Gift Certificates Worth Hundreds of Billions of Won Also Discovered

[Financial News] A woman in her 60s was found in a freezer at a café in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, and police have detained the café owner, a man in his 30s, as a suspect and are investigating.
Yonhap News Agency and other outlets reported on the 7th that Paju Police Station had detained a man in his 30s, identified as Mr. A, on suspicion of murdering the victim and was investigating the case.
At around midnight on the 4th, a missing-person report was filed in Yeongdeungpo District, Seoul, for a woman in her 60s, identified as Ms. B.
After tracking Ms. B’s whereabouts based on her mobile-phone location and other information, police found her body at around 2:36 p.m. that day in a freezer at a café in Munsan-eup, Paju.
Police identified A, the café owner who had been with B when she went missing, as a suspect and arrested him in Yeongdeungpo at around 2:31 p.m., shortly before the body was found. The Goyang Branch of the Uijeongbu District Court issued a warrant to detain A on the 6th.
Investigators determined that the two had met at the café at around 11 a.m. on the 3rd.
Closed-circuit television footage from inside the café reportedly showed B entering the freezer with A and A later emerging alone.
B had met A, who was engaged in so-called gift-certificate cash conversion, to discuss gift certificates. Investigators reportedly found counterfeit department-store gift certificates with a face value totaling hundreds of billions of won inside the freezer.
B’s body was found frozen near the entrance to the freezer. The two were reportedly not previously acquainted.
A reportedly admitted to the allegations during police questioning.
Police are expanding the investigation to determine the source of the counterfeit gift certificates, whether they were distributed, whether accomplices were involved, and A’s specific motive for the crime.
[email protected] Kim Su-yeon Reporter