South Korean gumshoes crack case of the filched footwear

Step aside, Imelda Marcos, for the newest shoe maven in Asia: the sole purloiner of Seoul.

For years, his eye was on men’s shoes, mostly designer brands like Bally and Ferragamo. But he wasn’t above lifting a pair of women’s pumps.

Pretending to be a mourner, he cased the prayer halls in hospitals, where South Koreans take off their shoes, leaving them in piles before kneeling to memorialize a friend or loved one.

Then he wore one pair at a time out of the room, returning in slippers to snatch another, as many as half a dozen in one heist.

He was finally nabbed this month by security officers outside a Seoul hospital with three pairs of shoes valued at $1,750. Over five years, authorities say, the 59-year-old suspect stole an estimated 1,700 pairs.

“It’s really absurd,” said Seoul police Det. Kim Jeong-gu. “He got away with things for so long.”

On Friday, police held their own exercise in absurdity: a shoe lineup. Victims from across the Seoul area were invited to peruse hundreds of pairs.

Yoo Kyung-sun was one of a dozen people scouting for lost shoes. Three years ago, the retired small-business owner lost a favorite pair, a gift from his son.

That day at the hospital, he donned slippers for the trip home. “People were laughing at me on the subway, because I was wearing slippers with a suit and tie,” he said. “It was ridiculous.”

Yoo was upset, even angry. Take off your shoes out of respect and what happens? You become a petty crime victim.

“Is this guy insane?” he asked of the suspect while walking among lines of shoes divided between foreign and Korean brands.

Lee Jong-yeon, 60, a former newspaper reporter who was a victim too, said he had never written about a stranger case. “I wonder who could steal somebody else’s shoes?”

Investigators are asking the same question. They can say this: They don’t believe the suspect had a sexual fetish. Rather, he operated a mobile secondhand shoe stall and was just in search of new stock.

The suspect would scout out shoes he could resell, they say, and would repair some to ask for top dollar. Police raided a self-storage garage and found a cache.

“There were so many boxes,” said Kim.

When authorities staged an earlier lineup, they reunited 40 people with their stolen footwear. The event was so successful that they decided to try again.

Lee said he didn’t report the theft because he believed it was bad form to become upset at a friend’s funeral. Others were just too embarrassed to call police.

Yoo said he saw a story on television requesting victims to come forward. So there he was, searching for his favorite loafers.

“Those are my shoes,” he said. “Thank you. Thank you.”

He tried them on, confirmed the fit and went on his way. But not before acknowledging that the experience had taught him a lesson.

“When I go to funerals, I only wear cheap shoes.”

Park is a researcher in The Times’ Seoul Bureau.