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Police say all messages from doomed ship are fake

MOKPO/JINDO — The police said late on Thursday that all messages claiming to have been sent from the sunken ferry after it went down appear fabricated.

A distraught relative at a port in Jindo yesterday where other 
family members have gathered. Photo: Reuters

A distraught relative at a port in Jindo yesterday where other
family members have gathered. Photo: Reuters

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MOKPO/JINDO — The police said late on Thursday that all messages claiming to have been sent from the sunken ferry after it went down appear fabricated.

Government investigators said they would find and punish the people who had sent the text messages or social media posts purporting to be from missing students, saying they were alive and waiting for help.

South Korea police posted on its official Twitter account: “An investigation from the Police Cyber Terror Response Center verified that all texts in question (from passengers still within the ship) are fake.”

It added: “Please stop such actions that are causing pain to the families of missing passengers. The malicious distributors of these texts will be strictly dealt with.”

On Thursday, messages such as “I am still alive... in the cafeteria please help me my battery is running out please believe me,” and “My phone is not working I am inside the boat I can’t see anything” were spreading on social media.

The Korea Herald reported that investigators had secured the mobile phone records of some 271 people who are still missing. The police analysed the phone calls, text and other messages possibly sent from mobile messengers.

The police said it checked more than 300 phones, since some people owned more than one phone. They found that none of the phones had been used since noon on the day of the accident. One of the fake messages was sent from a phone owned by a fifth grader in Gimpo, Gyeonggi province.

The ferry sank within two hours of sending a distress signal at 9am on Wednesday. AGENCIES

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