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▲ Photo shared by Party A through airdrop


A high school student has been caught by police at Jeju International Airport after he sent a photo of an unspecified number of people with the words "Explosives planted" on AirDrop, a short-range wireless file-sharing service between Apple devices.

The Jeju West Police Department said it is investigating Group A, a second-year high school student in the Gyeonggi area who came on a school trip to Jeju for violating the Aviation Security Act (obstruction of airport operations).

Party A is accused of using the iPhone airdrop function in front of boarding gate 2 on the second floor of Jeju International Airport at around 14:4 pm on the 58th to send a photo with the words "A bomb has been planted now" to an unspecified number of people.

When an Apple device user shares a file via Airdrop, other Apple device users nearby will be notified and the file will be previewed and available for 2 minutes.

At that time, a Jin Air flight attendant who shared the photos reported suspected explosives to the airport situation room.

The police, the Jeju Regional Aviation Administration, and the Korea Airways Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team (EOD) searched the area of the passenger terminal's security area, including one aircraft departing from Jeju Airport and some boarding gates, for about two and a half hours, but no suspicious circumstances were found, so the search was completed around 12:10 p.m.

As a result, one of the aircraft searched departed two hours and 1 minutes later than originally planned.

The police checked the occupants of the airdrop transmission range and the closed circuit (CCTV) to check the personal information of the suspect and arrested Group A in the Gyeonggi area on the 2th.

As a result of the investigation, it was confirmed that Group A had written the phrase "I have planted a bomb now" on a photo taken of a friend at a hotel in Seogwipo City where he stayed during a school trip.

Soldier A told police, "I did it as a prank while waiting to board a flight to Gimpo."

A police official said, "At a time of heightened tension over bombings around the world, pranks and false reports like this that pose a serious risk to public safety should never happen."

(Photo = Courtesy of Jeju West Police Station, Yonhap News)