According to the Associated Press on the 18th, the identities of the suspects involved in the drone-making of the “Korean drone invasion incident” have been confirmed-two people who used to work in former President Yoon Suk Yeol‘s presidential office.
Former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.
The report said there were two suspects in the case. Suspect A served as a supervisor under the presidential spokesperson‘s office during the Yoon Suk Yeol administration. B, who claims to have been involved in the drone launch, also worked at the presidential palace in Longshan during the same period. Both are now ordinary civilians in their 30s.
The military-police joint investigation team responsible for investigating the case concluded that A had manufactured the drone involved and conducted a subpoena investigation on November 16. A was arrested for violating the Aviation Security Act when he launched a drone without permission in the area of Yuzhou city in Kyonggi Province in November last year. It is known that the drone A launched at that time was the same model as the one involved in this incident. The team concluded that A was not suspected of espionage based on his confession that he had “experimented with the aircraft manufactured in the laboratory.”
Both A and B attended a private high school in Seoul. In 2024, they founded a drone manufacturing company with the support of the school and served as representatives and directors respectively. They also organized South Korea-North Korea reunification-related youth groups in 2020. B claims that A only manufactured drones at his own request and was not involved in the deployment of drones.
“South Korea‘s drone invasion incident” has sparked tensions in North-South relations. According to the Korean Central News Agency, a spokesperson for the General Staff of the Korean People‘s Army issued a statement on the 9th saying that following the October 2024 drone invasion incident over Pyongyang, South Korea launched a drone to invade North Korea‘s airspace at the beginning of the new year, making another serious provocation. The vice-minister of the Central Committee of the Workers‘ Party of Korea, Kim Yeo-jung, issued a speech on the 13th saying that South Korea has indeed recently made serious provocative acts that violated North Korea‘s sovereignty, and Seoul should acknowledge the provocative acts that violated North Korea‘s sovereignty, apologize for them, and take measures to ensure that similar incidents do not occur again, otherwise it will pay an unbearable price, “This is not a simple rhetorical threat or the continuation of a verbal war.”
According to the Associated Press, President Lee Jae-ming ordered the formation of a military-police joint investigation team on the 10th to quickly investigate the possible “invasion of North Korea” by civilian drones, and said that if this is true, it would be a serious crime that threatens the peace of the Korean Peninsula and national security.