Frozen body of missing woman found alongside hundreds of billions of won in counterfeit gift cards at Paju cafe

Body of woman in her 60s discovered in freezer container at large bakery cafe in Munsan-eup, Paju; counterfeit department store gift cards also found

Police are investigating after the frozen body of a woman in her 60s was found in a freezer storage unit at a cafe in Paju, Gyeonggi Province. The cafe owner, a man in his 40s, has been arrested and detained as a suspect. The photo shows the cafe on Monday, with a notice posted on the door saying it is closed due to internal circumstances. [Yonhap]

Counterfeit department store gift cards worth hundreds of billions of won were found inside the freezer container of a Paju cafe where the frozen body of a missing woman in her 60s was discovered, according to police.

Investigators believe the cafe owner, a man in his 40s, committed the crime after the woman discovered that the gift cards he was trying to sell her were fake.

Police arrested the cafe owner, identified only as A, and detained him Monday on charges including luring and killing the woman.

The case began Friday when the family of a woman identified as B reported her missing to the Yeongdeungpo Police Station in Seoul in the early morning hours.

Tracking B's mobile phone signal to Paju, Gyeonggi Province, officers found her body 14 hours after the missing-persons report was filed — at 2 p.m. Friday — inside a freezer container at a large bakery cafe in Munsan-eup, Paju.

Closed-circuit television footage from inside the cafe showed A and B entering the freezer container together, with only A emerging afterward.

Police believe A lured B to the cafe and locked her inside the freezer container, causing her death. Officers arrested A in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, on the same day and applied for an arrest warrant.

The investigation revealed that A ran a gift-card cash-conversion business, buying and selling gift cards for cash. He met B at his cafe on Thursday and led her to the freezer container under the pretense of showing her gift cards he had for sale. When B realized the cards were counterfeit, he killed her, police said.

A had instructed his employees not to come to work on the day of the crime, investigators found. Nearby CCTV footage captured him arriving at the cafe by car.

The counterfeit department store gift cards found inside the freezer container are believed to be worth hundreds of billions of won.

Police are continuing to investigate the precise circumstances of the case.

jshan@heraldcorp.com