A woman thought to be the mother of two children whose dead were discovered in unattended baggage in New Zealand last month has been detained by South Korean police.
The New Zealander with Korean ancestry was apprehended on Thursday in Ulsan, according to the National Police Agency, after the international organization Interpol issued a red notice. The 40-year-old lady has been accused of murder.
Authorities believe the lady killed her then-7-year-old and 10-year-old children in Auckland in 2018 before escaping to South Korea.
She will now be considered for extradition to New Zealand by a South Korean court.
The bodies of the children were discovered by a family searching through the contents of a storage locker they had unknowingly acquired, prompting New Zealand police to open a homicide investigation in Auckland last month.
The family who discovered the bodies were unrelated to the victims.
As her previous address in New Zealand was connected to the storage unit where the luggage was kept, authorities believe the lady detained in South Korea may be the mother of the two victims. The woman’s spouse had previously passed away from sickness while visiting New Zealand, according to the Yonhap news agency.
According to New Zealand police, they have urged the South Korean government to imprison the woman until they can deport her.
In a statement, Detective Inspector Tofilau Fa’amanuia Vaaelua stated, “To have someone in prison overseas within such a short period of time have all been down to the help of the Korean authorities and the coordination of our New Zealand Police Interpol colleagues.”
He said that the inquiry had been “extremely tough” and that further inquiries were being made both domestically and internationally.
Police would not make any further comments, according to Vaaelua, as the case was already in court. In order to prevent the possibility of influencing the result of ongoing court proceedings, authorities in New Zealand normally refrain from commenting on them.
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