60% Arrest Rate for 'Murder Threat' Post Authors... "Difficult to Trace Overseas Sites"

146 Cases in Southern Gyeonggi Over One Year... 58 Under Investigation
Suspect in 'Yatap Station Stabbing Rampage' Still at Large

Since the stabbing incident at Seohyeon Station in Bundang last August, there have been 146 cases in the southern Gyeonggi region alone over the past year involving posts threatening to kill unspecified numbers of people in crowded places. However, the arrest rate of suspects is around 60%, and in some cases, it is reported that even identifying the suspects is difficult.

On the 7th, the Southern Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency announced that since last August, a total of 146 cases of posts threatening murder have occurred, of which 88 cases (60.2%) have been solved, while 58 cases are still under investigation. The suspect in the recent Yatap Station incident, which caused public fear, has not yet been apprehended.

On the 23rd of last month, the police special forces were patrolling Yatap Station on the Suin-Bundang Line in Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do, where a post predicting a weapon rampage had been uploaded.
[Photo by Yonhap News]

On the 18th of last month, an unidentified person posted on an online community, "On Monday at Yatap Station, I will stab and kill 30 people." In preparation for any emergency, the police deployed three patrol teams, one riot squad, an armored vehicle, and local police around Yatap Station to strengthen patrols. They also requested cooperation from the site to identify the poster, but received no significant assistance. The site’s server is located overseas, and aside from Telegram, there is no way to contact the site operator, making it very difficult to resolve the case.

The police requested data such as the poster’s IP information from the site, but the site reportedly responded, "We do not have that information either." The main page of the site includes descriptions such as "A safe community conducted anonymously" and "A site used without worrying about IP or personal information." Given this, the site is an online community where anyone can easily post anonymously, making it theoretically impossible to trace the poster’s information, including IP. After the incident, the site posted a notice stating, "Due to the nature of our system, even the operators cannot identify the poster’s identity, guaranteeing complete anonymity," and "We prioritize citizens’ safety and are cooperating with the investigation."

The police stated that it is difficult to identify posters when posts are made on sites with overseas servers or anonymous sites like this. At a regular press briefing, the Cyber Investigation Division of the Southern Gyeonggi Police Agency said, "This site is an overseas site that can be used anonymously, with no requirement to use an ID or personal verification when posting," and "We are investigating through various methods such as tracking related sites and international cooperation." The statute of limitations for posting murder threats is five years.