Perfect Cooperation Among Korea, Taipei, Britain and Switzerland

The cooperation by the InterPol ended the fleeing by Mr. Ahn (33). He is a suspect in a case where customers’ accounts with Daewoo Securities were manipulated. For 5 days, Ahn was at large.

After the case became known, he took the flight to Bangkok at 12:30 p.m. on August 23, 2002, along with his wife, at the Incheon International Airport. At around 4:30 p.m. on the same day (hereinafter local time), he stayed there for three days. Then, at 11:35 p.m. on August 26, he took a flight to London via Switzerland.

Cyber Unit of the Seoul Police Department (CU) considered Ahn, then Daewoo employee, the suspect in this case. Accordingly, the CU launched an investigation about his whereabouts. But, he had already fled out of Korea. By waging an intense intelligence operation, the CU got to know that he got onboard a flight to London on August 26 after a short stay in Bangkok.

After taking out an arrest warrant, the police asked the Korean Embassy in Switzerland to secure his custody. But due to the untimely cooperation with the Swiss police authorities, the Embassy failed to take him into custody.

The CU immediately sent a request, via the Koran Embassy in UK, to UK’s Interpol and immigration authorities at the airport to arrest him upon his arrival and expel him back to Korea. Accordingly, the Ahn couple got detained right upon their arrival at the City Airport of London at around 10 a.m. on August 27.

The London immigration authorities decided to expel the couple back to the Zurich Airport after reviewing the arrest warrant and other documents provided by the Korean police.

The Korean police dispatched its officer stationing in France to Zurich and asked for the cooperation of the Swiss Interpol in sending the Ahns back to Korea. Consequently, at around 5 p.m. on August 27, they were sent back to Bangkok where the police officers stationing in Bangkok and Taipei authorities cooperated and arrested them at the Bangkok Airport.

At around 7:35 a.m. on August 29, the couple is expected to land at the Incheon International Airport onboard flight 652 of KAL.

Hoon Lee dreamland@donga.com