A robbery at a South Korean casino appears to fall apart after the recovery of most of the stolen cash and the arrest of an alleged thief.
Police in Jeju, South Korea’s holiday island, announced wednesday the arrest of a 30-year-old Korean citizen, whose identity was not disclosed. The man could be involved in the theft of KRW14.5b (US $ 13.4M) in cash from the casino operating at the Jeju Shinhwa World resort.
The money was deposited in several safes belonging to the VIP gaming room of the casino owned by Landing International Development. However, the police reported that most of the money stolen was recovered.
So far there is a lot of secrecy surrounding the incident by the police, the Yonhap news agency noted. The suspect appears to be “an employee of an agent company that attracts and manages casino customers.”
Although the police clarified that the arrested suspect is not a casino employee, but could work for another of the Jeju casinos.
Investigations into the robbery are progressing as authorities track down the alleged mastermind behind the robbery. A 55-year-old Malaysian casino executive is suspected of not returning to work after the holidays.
The company that owns the casino reported on january 4 about the missing cash in the casino vaults and indicated that before going on vacation at the end of last year the employee could have deleted the surveillance video.
Police later said that the woman and two other alleged male accomplices, including a Chinese national, may have had difficulty mobilizing the cash. The stolen money weighed more than 600 pounds in 50 KRW notes. That is why it was believed that the cash had not been able to be moved out of the country.
Indeed, last week the police located KRW8.1b in cash of the stolen money inside a safe located in the VIP room of the casino. What remains unclear is why Landing could not find such a large amount of cash before reporting the theft to the police.
Other KRW4b banknotes were located by the police at the Malay woman’s house, so only the remaining KRW2.4b would be found.
Authorities presume that the woman and her Chinese accomplice fled the country. Police suspect that the criminals acted in complicity with other people. As part of the investigation, the police are analyzing the images of the security videos that were saved in the hope of finding new clues.
Source: https://calvinayre.com/2021/01/21/casino/south-korea-casino-heist-suspect-arrested-cash-recovered/