"This Is Not Our Café"...Unrelated Café With the Same Name Targeted in Witch Hunt Over Paju Freezer Warehouse Body Case

[Financial News] A woman in her 60s who had been reported missing was found dead in the freezer warehouse of a large café in Paju-si, Gyeonggi Province. As the shocking case unfolds, cafés in other regions with the same name as the one where the incident occurred are complaining of secondary harm caused by indiscriminate speculation and protest calls.
According to police and other sources on the 8th, Paju Police Station in Gyeonggi Province is investigating a café owner in his 30s, identified as B, after arresting him on suspicion of murder and abandoning a corpse.
The case came to light shortly after a missing-person report was filed for a woman in her 60s, identified as A, with Yeongdeungpo Police Station in Seoul around midnight on the 4th. After tracking her mobile phone base-station location and other information, police found A's frozen body in a freezer warehouse inside B's café in Munsan-eup, Paju-si, at 2:36 p.m. that day—about 14 hours after beginning the search.
Police urgently arrested B in Seoul's Yeongdeungpo District at 2:31 p.m., five minutes before discovering the body.
Investigators found that the two first met at the café at around 11 a.m. on the 3rd to conduct a so-called gift-certificate cashing-out transaction, in which gift certificates are bought at a discount and converted into cash. B allegedly lured A into the freezer warehouse by telling her, "The gift certificates are in the warehouse," then left alone. B had also instructed employees not to come to work starting on the 3rd, the day before the crime, and had suspended café operations.
Police asked the National Forensic Service to conduct an autopsy to determine the exact method of the crime and cause of death, including whether B killed A inside the freezer warehouse and left her there or locked her in the subzero facility, causing her to die from hypothermia or another condition.

After the crime scene was identified as a famous large café in Paju that is regularly visited by people from outside the area, posts expressing shock and fear have continued to appear on local community forums. They include comments such as, "I often went there with my child, and it gives me chills," and, "Had the crime already taken place when the notice about the closure was posted?"
The fallout from the case has spread to unrelated businesses as well. As the name of the café in question rapidly circulated online and on social media, cafés in other regions using the same or similar name have been mistaken for the establishment involved in the crime. They have suffered harassment, including protest messages and inquiry calls.
An owner operating a café with the same name in Yongin-si, Gyeonggi Province, issued an urgent notice. The owner pleaded, "As our name has been mentioned in connection with the recent incident in Paju, misunderstandings and inquiries have continued to reach our store. The café in Paju is a completely separate business with a different owner and operating entity, and we have absolutely no connection to the incident."
Internet users have also called for restraint, saying, "It is a bolt from the blue for small-business owners when the only thing the businesses share is a name," and, "People should refrain from witch hunts that harm innocent businesses based on unverified information."
[email protected] Moon Young-jin Reporter