November 11, 2025
SEOUL – A Gangwon Province middle school was received a bomb threat Sunday, which police dispatched to the site found to have been a hoax.
According to the Gangwon Provincial Office of Education on Monday, Seoul police on Sunday evening notified the Pyeongchang Police Station that an anonymous threat had been made against a school in the city.
The author of the online post claimed to have planted explosives inside the school, and threatened to kill the students.
Police searched the school and found no explosives on the premises. No evacuation was required, as the school was closed at the time
The police are currently investigating the IP address used to make the threat. If the author of the threat is found, they intend to seek charges of public intimidation, punishable by up to five years in prison or 20 million won ($13,700) fine.
The offense, which covers the threat of violence against lives and safety of the public, was put into law in March this year, with the first conviction in August. In that case, a 30-year-old man who threatened to kill unspecified individuals and tried to set off a makeshift bomb was given a 6 million won fine.
From March to July, 48 suspects have been investigated by police in relation to 72 cases of public intimidation, according to a September data from the National Police Agency and the Ministry of Justice. It was found that 16 of the suspects were in their 20s while eight were in their 30s, accounting for half of all suspects.
But the resulting sentences have been criticized as being too lenient.
On Aug. 5, two posts claimed to have set up explosives inside the Shinsegae Department Store in Seoul, which turned out to have been written each by a man in his 20s and a middle school student. The department store claimed the evacuation and temporary shut-down of the store caused as much as 600 million won in losses.
While the defendants of such threats often escape with fines in the criminal trials that follow, it is possible for victims to seek more significant financial compensation in a civil lawsuit. It was reported in October that Shinsegae intended to sue the adult defendant for the bomb threat for damages, though the amount was not disclosed.