“Be careful on the first floor of an apartment”… My target is houses with lights turned off during the holidays.

(Daily News reporter Jiang Suying) A group of vacant house burglars who only targeted first-floor apartments with the lights turned off have been caught.

(Photo = SBS screenshot)

According to a SBS report on the 30th of last month, in the same month, items worth 17 million won, including cash and precious metals, were stolen from an apartment in Jecheon City, North Chungcheong Province.

According to the police, the thieves observed the house on the first floor and confirmed that the lights were off for more than an hour. After confirming that no one was there, they climbed over the railing and entered the house.

In fact, CCTV footage released at the time showed a man in a black hat wandering among flower beds and looking into the darkened first floor of a flat with the lights turned off.

After stealing the money, the group fled in the car of another man who was waiting outside and were arrested in Andong City, North Gyeongsang Province on the 4th of last month, 18 days after the incident.

The investigation results also revealed that these people are seniors and juniors from their hometown, and they have been targeting the first floor of Daegu to steal vacant houses.

Based on this, the police transferred them to the prosecutor’s office for special theft and are investigating whether they have committed other crimes.

At the same time, as the summer vacation season approaches from mid-July to mid-August, we need to be prepared for burglary crimes.

In fact, more than 30 percent of all burglary crimes occur during this period, and the number of break-ins at vacant homes is 20 percent higher than usual.

Therefore, when away from home for long periods of time, flyers and mail can pile up and become targets, so one approach is to use the Vacant Homes Advance Reporting System to collect them.

The “Vacant House Advance Reporting System” allows people who have been away for more than three days to notify the nearby police station or local police station, and during the reporting period, patrols near the home, sends reassuring text messages, and collects and stores flyers and various mails.

Alternatively, if you don’t have a place to store your mail, you can also use the post office’s “bulk mail delivery service.” Additionally, you can prevent burglary in an unoccupied home by installing a “window open alarm,” which sounds when a window is opened.