'Is This for Real'... 'Oil Theft Gang' Rents Entire Motel to Dig Tunnel

Recruiting Accomplices and Meticulously Planning the Crime
Staying at Motel, Dug Tunnel, Arrested by Police for Attempted Crime

A group of eight people who rented an entire motel and dug a tunnel to the oil pipeline burial site to steal oil have been handed over to the prosecution.

On the 9th, the Daejeon Metropolitan Police Agency announced that four people in their 50s, including Mr. A, were arrested on charges of violating the Oil Pipeline Safety Management Act, and the remaining four were sent without detention.

According to Yonhap News, around January 1st, Mr. A and seven others rented an entire motel in Cheongju, Chungbuk, and are accused of drilling through the basement wall and digging a tunnel about 10 meters long for over a month using shovels and pickaxes to extract oil from the nearby oil pipeline.

Mr. A, who had connections in the oil industry, began recruiting accomplices such as financiers, technicians, and excavation workers from May last year by enticing them with a profit of 400 to 500 won per liter. He meticulously prepared the crime with them, including scouting the crime site, surveying the oil pipeline burial point, and drafting tunnel blueprints.

A motel in Cheongju, Chungbuk, rented and a tunnel being dug underground. [Image provided by Daejeon Police Agency]

Mr. B, in his 60s, who acted as the technician among the group, is known to have worked as a technician at the Korea Oil Pipeline Corporation but resigned due to a similar prior offense.

The group stayed and ate at the motel while digging the tunnel all day, reaching within 30 cm of the oil pipeline, but were arrested by the police who had anticipated their crime, resulting in an attempted theft.

The targeted oil pipeline was located right next to a four-lane national road with an average daily traffic of about 66,000 vehicles. It was buried 3 meters below the surface, posing a risk of ground subsidence and collapse that could have caused large-scale casualties.

Previously, in October last year, the group attempted to steal fuel from an oil pipeline buried near a gas station they rented in Okcheon-gun, Chungbuk, but abandoned the attempt due to excessive water in the tunnel at that time.