Korean Man Found Dead in Thailand with All Ten Fingers Severed... Investigation Underway on Time of Amputation

All fingers of a Korean man found dead in a reservoir in Pattaya, Thailand, were reportedly severed.

According to the Metropolitan Police Bureau of Thailand and the public broadcaster (TPBS) on the 13th local time, a joint investigation team meeting held the previous day revealed that all 10 fingers of the male body were cut off.

The police requested an analysis from the forensic research institute of the police hospital to determine the timing of the finger amputation.

If the fingers were cut before death, it is suspected that torture was inflicted, and if after death, it is presumed to have been done to make identification difficult.

According to the police, the body is presumed to be that of a Korean tourist in his 30s, Mr. A, who entered Thailand on the 30th of last month and then went missing.

Thai police are examining a body contained in a black plastic container recovered from a reservoir in Pattaya.
[Photo by KaoSot, a Thai media outlet, homepage capture]

Mr. A is a resident of Gimhae City, Gyeongnam Province, and has a Thai wife. According to the statement secured from the Thai wife by the police, he went to Thailand on April 30 and was last seen on May 2 at a bar in the Huai Khwang area of Bangkok.

Later, around noon on the 7th, Mr. A’s mother received a threatening phone call from an unknown person saying, "If you do not pay 3 million baht (approximately 112 million KRW) because your son caused damage by discarding drugs, we will kill your son."

The Korean Embassy in Thailand requested cooperation from local police after receiving a report from Mr. A’s mother, and an investigation began.

The local police obtained a statement from the Thai wife about the last whereabouts and tracked Mr. A’s movements through closed-circuit television (CCTV).

The CCTV footage showed two Korean men putting Mr. A into a car and heading toward Pattaya in the early hours of the 3rd.

The footage also captured them buying a plastic container and rope, parking the car near the reservoir for about an hour, and then leaving.

The police deployed divers to search the reservoir where the suspects stayed and found the body inside a black plastic container filled with cement at a depth of 3 meters.

The Criminal Mobile Unit of the Gyeongnam Provincial Police Agency, together with local police, identified three Korean suspects and tracked them. Among them, Mr. B, in his 20s, who had entered Korea, was urgently arrested at his residence in Jeongeup, Jeonbuk Province, at 7:46 p.m. on the 12th.

Mr. B is suspected of killing Mr. A with two Korean accomplices, placing the body in a container, filling it with cement, and disposing of it.

The provincial police agency is known to have collected DNA information from Mr. A’s family and sent it to the local authorities to confirm the victim’s identity.

In addition, the investigation is focusing on the motive for the crime and tracking the remaining suspects.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.