A man in his 50s who wandered along a road before deliberately throwing himself against a reversing car in an attempt to collect insurance money has been arrested by police.
The Guri Police Station in Gyeonggi Province said Friday that it had referred the man, identified only as A, to prosecutors without detention on charges of violating the Special Act on the Prevention of Insurance Fraud.
A is suspected of approaching a reversing Kia Morning vehicle on a road in Sutaek-dong, Guri, at around 11 a.m. on April 26 and deliberately colliding with it to extract insurance money.
Police, who initially received the case as an ordinary traffic accident and were investigating it as such, grew suspicious after reviewing the footage. The way A fell immediately after the accident was exaggerated compared with how people typically react when struck by a car, and it was also unusual that he lay on the ground until officers arrived despite not being seriously injured.
Closed-circuit television (CCTV) captured A loitering around the crosswalk from 10 minutes before the accident, apparently trying to induce a contact collision. The investigation found that A was intoxicated at the time and, after failing in attempts to cause contact accidents with vehicles, targeted the victim's car as it reversed in an alley.
Police summoned A and questioned him about the deliberate accident. A initially denied the allegations, but when confronted with the footage, he said, "I was drunk and don't remember well," while admitting that he had deliberately collided with the car.
Police cleared the driver in the original traffic accident of any wrongdoing and referred A to prosecutors for violating the Special Act on the Prevention of Insurance Fraud.
