Four South Koreans accused of murdering a compatriot in Thailand after they had conned him into buying life insurance and making one of them the beneficiary have been arrested by South Korean police and will be extradited to stand trial.
The three men and one woman were detained recently following a request by Thai authorities, a police media briefing in Bangkok was told on Thursday.
They were identified as Park Junghee, 35, Park Changyu, 34, and Kim Choelyong, 23, and Ms Cho Eunsoree, 23.
The body of the victim, Lee Jaehoon, 23, was found dumped in roadside bushes at the entrance of Ban Krathum Phra village in tambon Ban Tarn of Chaiyaphum’s Bamnet Narong district on the evening of Dec 12 last year.
The young man sustained stab wounds to the stomach and left side of his body, and marks on his throat showed stangulation by rope. Police believed he had died at least 12 hours before his body was discovered.
Deputy national police chief Chalermkiat Srivorakhan told the press briefing that investigators had unearthed evidence that the four suspects had plotted to kill Lee.
The suspects had planned systematically, dividing the tasks. Mr Park and Ms Cho had lured the victim into buying life insurance in South Korea worth more than 300 million won (about 9 milion baht). Ms Cho was named the beneficiary of the insurance policy.
After that an air ticket had been arranged for the victim to travel to Thailand. The other two South Korean suspects, Mr Park and Mr Kim, met the 23-year-old man when he arrived, and later killed him, according to police. The suspects fled to South Korea after the murder.
The investigators presented their case to the Chaiyaphum provincial court, which approved a warrant for the suspects' arrest on charges of colluding in murder and the concealment of the corpse.
Thai police had coordinated with their South Korean counterparts to prohibit the suspects from leaving South Korea.
An application would be made for the suspects' extradition to Thailand to stand trial, Pol Gen Chalermkiat said.