My Calling Is Profiler [EN]: Chapter 468

“I don’t remember anything at all.”

“God damn it.”

Yu Gi-tae bit his lip at those words. He had come with a glimmer of hope, but it was as he expected. Then, suddenly, he looked at Park Do-joon with a hopeful thought.

Park Do-joon had clearly stated that if the question is wrong, you won’t get an answer.

‘But no matter how much I think about it, I can’t think of a different question?’

As if sensing that gaze, Park Do-joon chuckled and stepped forward. Then, he said to Park Hwang-do.

“The perpetrator made a deal here twice.”

“I heard that earlier, but I don’t remember. Moreover, the first deal was a whopping eight years ago.”

In fact, after that much time, it would be strange to remember, no matter how good your memory is.

“Then, there must have been someone who scouted the house for him instead, right?”

“Someone who scouted the house?”

“Yes.”

“Scouted the house instead?”

“Yes, there must have been someone who asked you to recommend that house.”

At those words, Lee Ji-soo tilted her head and asked.

“Detective, what do you mean?”

“I told you? Moving is a very big deal for people.”

“That’s right.”

“Especially if it’s not just within the same city, but to a different city altogether.”

But at that time, Im Gong-sa was working in Seoul. He wouldn’t have time to travel back and forth to Pyeongchang.

“The problem is that real estate agencies are closed on weekends these days.”

Park Do-joon said, pointing to the sign on the door.

-Closed on weekends.

“He can’t come down on a weekday to see the house in Pyeongchang. So, who would decide on the house? Would he take a day off to see it and sign the contract right away? There’s no way.”

“Ah!”

Of course, he would try to look at several places and find a house with better conditions if possible. But he doesn’t have time to do that.

“He doesn’t have a wife, and although he has siblings, he’s estranged from them. So, who would look at the house for him? Moreover, who would come down to Pyeongchang to look at it for him?”

“Someone from this area, then. Right!”

Park Do-joon nodded. Then, he turned his gaze back to Park Hwang-do.

“There’s a possibility that the person who asked you to show him the house is someone you know.”

“Someone I know?”

Seeing the uneasy expression on Park Hwang-do’s face, Park Do-joon said firmly.

“As you know, this is a major national case. If you cover it up, you could be investigated as an accomplice.”

Of course, there is no real possibility of him being an accomplice. But if rumors spread that he was investigated as an accomplice, he would have to give up on the idea of doing business in this neighborhood.

‘Because there’s no one crazy enough to go to a store with those kinds of rumors.’

Especially in the case of real estate, there are too many alternatives, putting him in a difficult situation.

“Um, so… it could be someone I know?”

“Yes.”

He might not know the details of the contracts from four and eight years ago, but if it’s someone he knew who asked him to show the house four and eight years ago, the pool of candidates narrows down significantly.

“And they probably still live around here.”

“I don’t have any particularly close people.”

“No, it would be someone you know, not necessarily someone close. Probably not someone you particularly want to be close to either. But someone you know well enough that you wouldn’t refuse if they asked you for a favor.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“There are all kinds of acquaintances, after all.”

There are close friends and soulmates, but even if you don’t get along, you’re still an acquaintance if you know their name and face.

So, when asking questions, it’s important to understand their personality and convey the level of distance you have with them.

“They probably don’t have a regular job, but they have some money and travel a lot. If they run a store, it’s probably closed often and they take irregular days off.”

“Irregular… Hmm? That sounds like Mr. Kim over there?”

Park Hwang-do said, as if a memory had suddenly surfaced. That’s how memories are. At first, you can’t remember, but once one thing comes to mind, the rest unravels like a thread, bursting forth all at once.

“Ah, that’s right! That’s what happened. Mr. Kim asked me to introduce him, so I introduced him.”

“Mr. Kim asked you to introduce him?”

“Yes, well, I’m not particularly close to that guy, but…”

But since they belong to the same merchants association, he couldn’t refuse and found him a suitable property.

“Come to think of it, that friend of his said he was going to retire to his hometown, so he was looking for a place for him, or something?”

“Who is this Mr. Kim you’re talking about?”

“He’s a friend who runs a place called Angoo Sports near the entrance.”

“He doesn’t open often, does he?”

“Well, not many people come to buy sports equipment these days.”

Indeed, most people buy sports equipment online these days. Because most sports equipment comes from overseas companies. There aren’t many places in Korea that manufacture sports equipment, and even the few that do don’t have good quality.

To be precise, they are outcompeted by Chinese products in terms of cost-effectiveness and by European and American products in terms of quality. Especially in Korea, where sports are elitist, there is a small fixed demand from students and the general public, so starting a factory is a recipe for disaster.

Even if there are any local manufacturers, most of them use online distribution channels these days.

“It’s true that there aren’t many sports specialty stores around anymore.”

Yu Gi-tae said, as if trying to recall something.

“Well, Mr. Kim doesn’t seem to be doing it desperately either.”

“Is that so?”

“That guy has some money. That’s why he travels and stuff. He owns several houses.”

Park Do-joon’s eyes lit up at those words.

“He must be rich, then?”

“He owns like six or eight villas [a type of multi-family housing common in South Korea]? Anyway, he’s a well-off guy. He says he’s just doing the sports equipment store as a hobby.”

“I see.”

Park Do-joon chuckled at those words.

“He seems to buy houses regularly?”

“Well, he does buy them regularly. He’s an enviable guy, anyway.”

Park Do-joon was convinced that he was almost there.

“The representative of Angoo Sports is Kim Oh-sang. And this guy has a criminal record.”

Once he knew the name of the store, everything else was a breeze. As a result of the investigation, Kim Oh-sang already had a criminal record in the past.

“The charges themselves are assault and organized crime.”

Yu Gi-tae said seriously.

“And the organization he belonged to is the Golden Axe Clan.”

“Is that really the name?”

Park Do-joon was dumbfounded at those words. It’s not the way they name things these days.

“Did the police give it that name?”

In reality, even if criminals create violent organizations and give them names, the police often give them names of their own.

“No, that’s not it. It’s an old organization.”

“An old organization?”

“It’s an organization from the 1980s. They were active until the early 90s.”

Park Do-joon suddenly felt a chill at those words. The most famous event representing the 1990s was the ‘War on Crime’ [a large-scale crackdown on organized crime initiated by the South Korean government].

And one of the crimes they tried to eradicate the most during that War on Crime was human trafficking.

“Don’t tell me it’s a human trafficking organization?”

“That’s right.”

Kim Oh-sang is in his 50s now. That means that if he was a member of a violent organization in the 1990s, when human trafficking was rampant in Korea, there is a high possibility that he was deeply involved in human trafficking.

“In fact, his criminal record is from when he went to prison during the War on Crime.”

“Roughly, then the timing matches.”

He would have been in prison around the time the War on Crime broke out in 1990. And after he was released, the memories of the War on Crime faded from people’s minds, and at the same time, the government changed, weakening the pursuit of violent organizations.

That was exactly in the 2000s.

“And the period of activity we’re estimating is 20 years.”

“If he was in a human trafficking organization, he would know better than anyone where and to whom people are being sold.”

Lee Ji-soo said, frowning. She didn’t experience the War on Crime era herself, but criminals don’t change their tendencies.

“Yeah, if there’s a sales line and the police aren’t tracking them, he’d think it’s worth doing.”

Moreover, while ordinary women can report or ask for help, disabled women wouldn’t be able to do that.

“And Im Gong-sa and Kim Oh-sang are from the same area and the same high school.”

It’s impossible to know if they know each other personally, but if they’re from the same high school, there’s a high possibility that they know each other.

“They probably weren’t good guys back then either.”

“Detective, what do you mean?”

“Now as well, but schools back then were literally jungles.”

Even now, schools try to cover up school violence, but it was even worse back then. There were even teachers who tried to control students through the so-called bullies who committed violence.

“In that era, even if you beat people up and stole money at school, the teachers didn’t care.”

Rather, it was an era when they would tell the victim, ‘If you open your mouth, the school will be embarrassed, so shut up.’

“So, it’s not strange that they developed antisocial tendencies within the school.”

Lee Ji-soo frowned at Park Do-joon’s words.

“That’s why profilers need to know the era well. Especially in countries like Korea, which have a history of truly turbulent times.”

Each generation had different ideologies and core personalities.

Now, it’s a big deal if a teacher demands bribes, but in the 1990s, it was common for students to be retaliated against if they didn’t give bribes to their teachers.

And the most common way to retaliate back then was to subtly signal the bullies to harass the child.

To be precise, if the teacher openly showed discrimination, the bullies at the time recognized that the child was no longer under protection and made them their prey.

And the school and the teacher knew about it, but mostly pretended not to know.

“Anyway, considering these various factors, it wouldn’t be difficult to prove that they knew each other in school. What about the vehicle?”

“The vehicle?”

“In order to commit human trafficking, the vehicle must be in a closed form that cannot be seen from the outside.”

In fact, the most common vehicle used by human trafficking groups in the past was a van, which was easy to force people into and easy to block the inside after tinting.

“It’s a truck. But it’s been converted into a 1-ton box truck.”

“A box truck… That’s definitely strange.”

The space in a box truck is such that you can do anything inside without it being noticed. But how often would a sports equipment store use a box truck?

Of course, never. Most people just go and buy the equipment or order it online. Large exercise equipment? Who would go to a sports equipment store to buy that expensively?

If you buy it online, they even deliver it.

“It’s an interesting coincidence.”

Park Do-joon said with a chuckle. A situation that looks suspicious at first glance.

“But we still can’t know if he’s the culprit.”

Yu Gi-tae said worriedly. That’s because there’s really no evidence.

“The guys who were arrested at the scene are stubbornly denying that they know anything.”

“Confrontation with the victims would be meaningless.”

The mentally broken female victims are unlikely to remember guys like Im Gong-sa or Kim Oh-sang. Even if they do remember, the lawyer will naturally try to deny the evidentiary power of the testimony due to their lack of intelligence, and as a result, it is likely to succeed.