Teenage siblings who took out loans using their father's mobile phone after secretly feeding him sleeping pills have been sent to trial following supplementary investigation by prosecutors, it has been learned.
Accomplice Omitted at Police Referral Stage
According to legal circles on the 14th, the Criminal Division 1 of the Ulsan District Prosecutors' Office (headed by Lee Ho-seok) indicted a girl identified as A and her boyfriend, identified as B, without detention on charges of robbery and fraud through use of computers on the 22nd of last month. A's younger brother was also referred to the court's juvenile division on the same charges.
Initially, police referred the case applying fraud charges only to B, it was found. The siblings' involvement was revealed later during the prosecution's investigation.
According to the investigation, in 2024 they mixed sleeping pills into coffee and had their father, who is in his 40s, drink it, then took out about 30 million won in loans from a bank using his mobile phone, diverting a total of about 40 million won from his account. They used the money to purchase gold, it was reported.
It was also confirmed that they later resold the gold at a jewelry shop to convert it into cash and spent it on expenses such as skincare treatments. When the father woke up and realized his children were missing, he filed a missing person report, revealing the full scope of the crime, it was learned.
Police identified the siblings and B within a day of the report and began an investigation, but at the referral stage they applied the mobile-phone loan fraud charge only to B, it was found.
Statement Reversed in Face-to-Face Questioning
Although B stated during police questioning that A had committed the sleeping-pill crime, A herself answered to the effect that "I never took part in the crime," and her younger brother also covered for her by saying "my sister did not take part," leading the investigation to be closed as it was, it was confirmed.
However, the situation changed when prosecutors launched a supplementary investigation in November last year. When they summoned the siblings and B together for face-to-face questioning, the siblings themselves admitted, "We ground up sleeping pills prescribed at the hospital, mixed them into coffee, and gave it to our father," it was found.
Prosecutors judged that A's act of feeding her father sleeping pills to render him defenseless, then stealing his mobile phone to take out loans, constituted robbery, and indicted her together with B, it was reported.
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