A pair of siblings who fed their father sleeping pills and siphoned off tens of millions of won using a stolen mobile phone have been brought to trial. Initially, police forwarded only the older sister's boyfriend on fraud charges, but prosecutors, through a supplementary investigation, also uncovered the siblings' involvement.

According to Kyunghyang Shinmun reporting on the 13th, Criminal Division 1 of the Ulsan District Prosecutors' Office (Chief Prosecutor Lee Ho-seok) indicted without detention on the 22nd of last month Nam (18) and her boyfriend Jeong (18) on charges of robbery·fraud by use of computers, etc. Nam's younger brother, Nam (15), was referred to the court's juvenile division as a juvenile protection case on the same charges. Depending on the court's decision, he will receive a protective disposition ranging from No. 1 (entrustment to a guardian's care) to No. 10 (commitment to a juvenile reformatory within two years).

In September 2024, they allegedly gave coffee laced with sleeping pills to the siblings' father, Mr. Nam (47); once he fell into a deep sleep, they stole his mobile phone and, using Nam's phone, obtained a non-face-to-face bank loan of $23,250 (31,000,000 KRW) and transferred a total of $31,500 (42,000,000 KRW) from Nam's account. They then purchased gold with the money, sold it back to a gold shop to convert it to cash, and used it for Nam's skincare expenses, among other things.

In October 2024, the Ulsan Nambu Police Station referred only Jeong, for obtaining a non-face-to-face loan using Nam's mobile phone, without detention, on suspicion of fraud by use of computers, etc. At the time, because the provision known as the relatives' exemption (Criminal Act Article 328(1)), which states that ‘property crimes among relatives are exempt from punishment’, had not yet received a ruling of constitutional nonconformity, the police did not open a case against Nam's son, Nam.

During the police investigation, Jeong identified Nam as an accomplice and stated to the effect that ‘she administered sleeping pills’. However, because Nam asserted ‘I did not participate in the crime’, and her younger brother Nam also stated ‘my sister did not do it’, the police closed the case without further inquiry into the sleeping pills.

The Ulsan District Prosecutors' Office launched a supplementary investigation in November last year. In the prosecution investigation, Jeong stated, “We planned from the outset with the Nam siblings to administer sleeping pills.” When prosecutors called the Nam siblings and Jeong together for a face-to-face confrontation interview, the siblings confessed to the crime. They revealed, “Nam crushed 10 to 20 tablets of a sleeping medication prescribed by a psychiatry clinic and an over-the-counter sleep aid purchased at a pharmacy into powder with a stone, mixed it into convenience-store coffee, and gave it to her father.”

Prosecutors applied charges of robbery·fraud by use of computers, etc., to the Nam siblings and sent the case to trial. Prosecutors determined that stealing their father's mobile phone and obtaining a non-face-to-face loan from a bank did not fall within the scope of the relatives' exemption. However, considering that the younger brother Nam participated at the direction of his sister and Jeong and derived no financial benefit, he was not indicted and was instead referred as a juvenile protection case.