Busan police on Wednesday said they recently closed a case on tracking down and recovering money that was mistakenly transferred to the account of a deceased person, after they failed to track down two of the three offspring of the departed account holder.
The incident occurred in March when an employee of a firm in North Jeolla Province wired 3.2 million won ($2,290), intended for a client to the bank account of a person who died five years ago, according to the Busan Saha Police Station, which has jurisdiction in Saha-gu, Busan, where the deceased was previously was.
Investigators learned that three children of the deceased had been listed as inheriting heirs, but failed to make contact with two of them. South Korean law states that the financial account of a dead person is to be frozen and withdrawals of the balance are possible only with the consent of all inheritors.
Officials were unable to withdraw the mistakenly wired money and closed the case on April 23. The person who made the transfer in error was notified of systems to apply for mistakenly transferred fees by the bank and the Korea Deposit Insurance Corp.
The KDIC can help recover wired funds of between 50,000 and 100 million won in cases where the transfer was made within one year of application.
minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com
