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Bomb threats heighten public anxiety as authorities scramble for leads

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Bomb threats heighten public anxiety as authorities scramble for leads

Bomb threats were sent to seven high schools in Seoul on Thursday alone, marking another wave of anonymous threats that have gripped the city’s schools with fear and chaos.

Despite the ongoing disruption — including wasted public resources, economic losses and heightened anxiety — authorities have made little progress in their investigation, even as similar threats have persisted for nearly two years. This lack of resolution is deepening public concern.

A total of six high schools in Seoul — Kyunggi High School, Daeil Foreign Language High School, Yeongdeungpo High School, Ewha Girls’ High School and Hansung Science High School — received faxes Thursday morning warning that explosives had been planted on their campuses, according to the police.

Around 1 p.m., another high school in central Seoul’s Jongno District received a similar threat via phone.

Police and fire authorities searched the schools but found no actual explosives. Still, the threats caused panic and disruption, prompting evacuations and early dismissals. Parents were left deeply unsettled.

The Thursday incidents followed a series of threats earlier in the week. A bomb threat was sent to an elementary school in Seoul on Monday. Two middle schools received threats on Wednesday. Some parents have expressed frustration, sarcastically referring to the suspect as a self-appointed “minister of school closures.”

The threats were sent under the name of Takahiro Karasawa, a Japanese lawyer, and written in both Japanese and English. The sender claimed to have planted multiple high-powered homemade bombs in school facilities, warning that “this time, I will really detonate them.”

The sender appears to be the same person responsible for this week’s earlier threats to elementary and middle schools, as well as similar faxes sent to the National Human Rights Commission on Aug. 8 — claiming bombs had been placed in four department stores in Seoul and one in Gwangju — and another fax on Aug. 10 targeting Olympic Gymnastics Arena.

The first known threat made under the name of the lawyer came via email on Aug. 7, 2023, warning that a time bomb would be detonated in a Seoul library unless then-liberal Democratic Party leader Lee Jae Myung was assassinated. The perpetrator has since broadened their targets from public facilities to schools, most recently threatening sulfuric acid attacks on students.

Despite the repeated nature of the threats, police have made little progress in identifying the perpetrator. From August 2023 to Thursday, 55 threats have been recorded, 14 of them in August. All are believed to be the work of the same individual, and authorities are conducting a consolidated investigation.

Police say they are working with international agencies, including Japanese authorities, to trace the origin of the messages. However, while the investigation drags on, similar messages are being posted to online communities. A middle school student in Jeju was arrested on Aug. 5 for writing an online post claiming a bomb had been planted on the first floor of the Shinsegae Department Store.

“Both my wife and I work full-time, so we scrambled to figure out who would pick up our child and inform our workplaces,” said one parent, whose child was sent home after their school received a bomb threat. “I’m frustrated thinking about how scared the kids must be.”

“Schools should be the safest spaces for children, but a string of bomb threats is eroding that safety,” said the Korean Federation of Teachers’ Associations issued a statement, and called on the government to take strong measures to trace and eliminate the source of the threats.

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