Korean Murder for Hire Plot Exposed

This is like something out of a low budget Korean crime flick:

A 26-year-old male IT employee known as Lee, enjoyed working alongside a 32-year-old woman identified as Park, and the pair began dating back in 2004. They were on again off again for a while, but in July of this year, Park confessed to being three months pregnant. Lee was in shock, as for the past two months he’d been seeing another woman secretly and had even promised to marry her. Lee asked Park to get an abortion, but she refused, leaving him in a deep hole. It was then that he decided having Park murdered was his best option and took up the search to find a willing hit-man on the Internet in October. Lee found the required serviceman and wrote him an email explaining that he should “Kidnap her and bury her in secret.” If the job was carried out successfully, the agreed price was W11million (US$1=W930). Lee borrowed W12 million from his new girlfriend telling her that he had his reasons.

However the hit man had a heart, and instead of executing the plan, he called Park and told her the whole story. The two put their heads together and came up with a plan of their own that would trick Lee into believing Park had indeed been killed. Park returned home and poured red dye on newspapers to resemble horrific blood shed, took a photo with her cell phone and sent it to the hired killer. With picture in hand the hit-man showed Lee that business had been taken care of and received his money as per their agreement. After getting an abortion, Park reported the incident to the police. Bangbae Police Station, Seoul, issued an arrest warrant for Lee Thursday and is in pursuit of the hired killer, who is still on the run.

This hitman sounds more like a clever conman.