My Calling Is Profiler [EN]: Chapter 172

Naturally, the corporation was furious and filed for breach of contract and damages.

“No matter how I look at it, there’s no way that wouldn’t lead to ruin, right?”

He made a foolish move, and the corporation, having lost all trust, would never accept deliveries from Jang O-gi again.

“So, I looked around, and it seems he tried to bribe his way out of the situation.”

“Bribe?”

“The opposing company filed a civil lawsuit and seized all his accounts.”

“Ah…”

So, he couldn’t siphon off any money, and far from making deliveries, he was about to go bankrupt.

“Well, usually when you pull off a stunt like that, you have something to rely on.”

The team leader nodded as if he understood. Would a corporation really be unaware of such tricks? Usually not. They know, but someone in the middle covers it up.

“The fact that it was caught in an audit is proof of that.”

Even though it’s a subcontractor, it’s still a separate company. The corporation doesn’t have the authority to audit them. Probably, the guy who was colluding internally got caught during the internal audit, and that’s how things escalated. So, he tried to bribe someone higher up to cover up the incident.

“How foolish. That’s not something that can be resolved with bribes.”

“Exactly.”

If it hadn’t become public, maybe, but once it’s out in the open, even the higher-ups are hesitant to take bribes. Naturally, covering it up would require climbing even higher.

“It’s money that’ll make you sick. If the corporation is seizing assets, it’s beyond a level that can be covered up.”

To do that, the legal team would have to get involved, and the legal team is usually closely connected to the audit team.

In other words, even if he tries to bribe now, they won’t accept it, and it’ll only add to his crimes.

Of course, if the higher-up was very high, the audit team and legal team would have covered it up on their own, but the fact that they caught it means it wasn’t someone at the very top.

However, Jang O-gi, who had been continuing transactions through bribes, probably thought that if he just gave a bribe, he could cover up the incident and continue the transactions.

“But Jang Jin-woo wouldn’t give it unless he was crazy, right?”

“Probably not. Even if they were on good terms.”

That kind of action would get you on the corporation’s bad side. Even the most popular celebrities get kicked out of the entertainment industry if they get on the wrong side of a corporation. Would he really give it?

“But he didn’t give the bribe money, so I went bankrupt… Is that what he believed?”

“It seems so.”

“So, the suspect is roughly identified… Ugh, can we catch him?”

“That’s… I don’t know. I looked into it, but after the company went bankrupt, there’s no trace of him…”

“Of course. Debt collectors would be trying to catch him, so he’d be on the run.”

After the company went bankrupt, all his assets were seized, and he even got divorced, Jang O-gi disappeared. No matter how much they searched, there was no trace of him.

“It’s only natural. With such terrible credit, what could he do anywhere?”

He can’t use credit cards or debit cards, and he can’t register an address because he can’t find a place to live.

The moment he registers his assets, the corporation will seize them.

I don’t know how much wealth he originally had, but it’s likely that his assets aren’t enough to cover all the damages demanded by the corporation.

“What about his family?”

“He’s divorced.”

“Even if he’s divorced, is there a possibility they’re living together?”

There are quite a few cases where they live together even though they’re divorced.

It’s to avoid compensation.

“No way. The court ruled that the divorce was for the purpose of concealing assets.”

“I see.”

In cases of crime, criminals divorce to hide their assets.

Because if it’s in the wife’s name, they can’t take it away, so they protect their assets. It’s a method used by most fraudsters. In such cases, no matter how wronged the victim is, they can’t get their money back…

“But if it’s for the purpose of concealing assets, the story changes.”

But it’s not like there’s no way. If the court acknowledges that the divorce was for the purpose of concealing assets, the victim can seize the divorced wife’s assets as well.

It’s not just a regular case, and there’s no way the corporation wouldn’t know that, and there’s no way the corporation would lose such a trial.

“He probably got caught suddenly, so he didn’t have time to siphon anything off.”

“Yes, so it seems he got divorced, but even that was taken away.”

Jang O-gi and his wife had two children, and currently, Jang O-gi’s ex-wife and children are living with her parents.

“Well, in that situation, there’s no way he’d be living with his in-laws.”

There’s no way his in-laws would welcome a guy who ruined all their assets and had his wife’s assets seized as well.

“So, he’s probably working odd jobs and moving from place to place.”

If he’s working odd jobs and moving from place to place, it’s realistically difficult to track him.

“This is… one mountain after another?”

The team leader expressed his honest feelings, and Park Do-joon had no choice but to acknowledge it.

#Hide and Seek, I See Your Hair

“Detective Park?”

“Yeah?”

Lee Ji-soo, who had been looking over Jang O-gi’s data for a while, suddenly asked a question.

“When you think about it, isn’t this where a profiler is even more needed?”

“The escape part?”

“Yes.”

“It is. But there’s no money.”

Once the suspect is identified and the tracking begins, most Korean profilers drop out. Naturally, the general police have to take care of it after that, but even if they just track him blindly, there’s really no answer in this case.

If the profilers track him down, they can narrow it down a bit, but since there aren’t enough people to profile every murder case, there’s no room for profilers in most tracking cases.

“That’s how budgets are. You have to save every penny to pay for the higher-ups’ room salon [expensive, private entertainment] expenses.”

“Wow, so pessimistic.”

“It’s closer to realism. And it’s strange if a profiler sees the world as normal.”

Park Do-joon simply summarized the situation like that.

“The important thing is to track down Jang O-gi.”

“But how do you really do this? Where could Jang O-gi be? I have no idea.”

If it’s a murderer, there’s a rough profile. They commit murders in the vicinity, or there’s a profile of their movements.

But there’s practically no accurate profiling of these fugitives in Korea yet. It’s because profilers aren’t投入 [invested] when tracking down fugitives in Korea in the first place.

“In times like these, you can start by eliminating possibilities.”

“Possibilities?”

“Yeah, there’s a saying in the Sherlock Holmes series. ‘After eliminating all possibilities, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.'”

“Ah, I know. Sherlock Holmes was fun.”

“Well, it’s like required reading among profilers.”

In a way, Sherlock Holmes is like the first popular media to show profiling in detail.

That’s why people were so enthusiastic about it. The author hated it so much, though. When the author killed Sherlock Holmes to end the series, he said, ‘Even if I had killed a real person, I wouldn’t have been criticized this much.’

“So, let’s eliminate the possibilities one by one.”

“Then what’s the first one?”

“First, he won’t work in an area related to him. He has a tremendous amount of pride.”

“Ah, I see.”

Jang O-gi didn’t reach out to Jang Jin-woo until right before he went bankrupt. If he was simply a greedy person, he would have tried to restore the relationship somehow.

“He’s a selfish person, but most of those people have strong pride.”

“That’s right. Most of the time, the two go hand in hand.”

You can assume that there is no one who is selfish but has low self-esteem. Of course, there are cases where self-esteem is 꺾이는 [broken] if there is a profit, but 꺾이는 [having] self-esteem for a while and having no self-esteem at all are completely different.

“So, he’s going to change his sphere of activity.”

It’s embarrassing to meet someone he knows while working in his existing sphere of activity. Naturally, trying to get out of that sphere of activity is a kind of instinct.

“Second, he has a car. Probably a stolen car.”

“Huh? How do you know that?”

“Specify the location where Jang Jin-woo was found. It’s generally a location that can’t be accessed without a vehicle.”

“Ah!”

Even if he somehow kidnapped Jang Jin-woo, he would have to take him there to kill him.

But you can’t kidnap him by bus or subway. Naturally, you need your own car to be able to kidnap him.

“Third, there must be a cause of the explosion.”

“That’s the problem.”

The cause of the explosion.

Everyone lives with anger in their hearts. There is no office worker who does not have anger towards their boss, and there is no one who does not have anger towards the world.

However, they just endure, tolerate, and suppress it and live on. Because that’s the world. But there are cases where they explode for some reason.

The reason can be various. It often explodes when someone crosses the line, such as ‘패드립 [making derogatory comments about someone’s parents]’ about the boss’s parents, or sexual harassment of a girlfriend.

Jang O-gi went bankrupt when Jang Jin-woo released his first album. But Jang Jin-woo died around the time he released his fifth album.

The interval between the two points is very long. But he just watched during that time and suddenly commits murder?

“That’s not very likely. There must have been a trigger.”

“Did he ask for funds to get back on his feet and was rejected?”

“No, that’s not very likely.”

The agency would have known if that was the case. At that time, Jang Jin-woo changed his address and phone number several times.

In other words, Jang O-gi’s only way to contact him would have been through the agency, but the agency doesn’t say they saw him.

“And considering Jang Jin-woo’s tendencies, there’s no possibility that he would help him get back on his feet.”

Well, if he was kind enough to help the guy who threw his own brother into an orphanage and told him to earn money when he was a minor… that’s not kind, that’s being a pushover.

“It’s more likely that it was a chance encounter.”

“You mean he ran into him by chance and exploded.”

“Yeah.”

The feeling of ‘I’ve fallen so low, but you’re doing so well. I went bankrupt because of you, but why are you doing so well?’

He then attempted murder based on that feeling. It’s not like there are no such cases at all. Anger sometimes can’t be controlled once it bursts out.

“But is that possible? Their paths wouldn’t cross, would they?”

The fugitive Jang O-gi and the successful singer Jang Jin-woo. The intersection between the two is practically 희박하다 [rare].

“Of course, that’s generally the case. But what kind of job can a fugitive have?”

“Oh, probably odd jobs.”

“Realistically, that’s probably the case.”

Most salaries are deposited into bank accounts. There’s no other way. The employer also needs to process expenses.

Naturally, Jang O-gi, whose assets are still seized, cannot create a new bank account.

Of course, it’s not like a seizure will be placed on a new bank account as soon as it’s created. The company that requested the seizure must recognize this and apply to the court for a seizure of that account.

If it’s a place that doesn’t care about that, it might be possible, but if the corporation’s legal team isn’t just playing around, there’s probably continuous monitoring going on.

“It would be impossible for such a day laborer to buy a ticket and watch a performance.”

No, it would be impossible. Moreover, from Jang O-gi’s point of view, he’s the 원흉 [main culprit] who ruined him, so why would he buy a ticket and go there to see him?