Cafe owner in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, submits footage to JTBC's 'Sageon Banjang'

A visitor walks along a hydrangea-lined path at Mareuk Neighborhood Park in Seo-gu, Gwangju, on June 24. The image is unrelated to the article. [Yonhap]
A visitor walks along a hydrangea-lined path at Mareuk Neighborhood Park in Seo-gu, Gwangju, on June 24. The image is unrelated to the article. [Yonhap]

A cafe owner in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, says an elderly man who secretly cut flowers from his terrace later returned — and tried to sell them back to him.

The owner, a man in his 30s identified only as A, submitted video footage of the incident to JTBC's crime show "Sageon Banjang" on Sunday.

"I went to water the hydrangeas and noticed they had been cut cleanly — snip, snip," A said on the program. "Twenty blooms were gone. When I checked the CCTV footage, I recognized the person."

The footage showed an elderly man, identified as B, walking briskly onto the terrace early in the morning before the cafe opened and cutting the hydrangeas without hesitation. A had spent three to four years cultivating the flowers as part of the cafe's landscaping.

B had previously visited the cafe on several occasions to sell flowers, mugwort and wooden walking sticks.

"He came five or six times carrying wildflowers like cosmos and fleabane, claiming he had grown them himself and asking me to buy them," A said. "He also showed me old wooden canes, saying they would make good gifts for elders. I knew his face, and I had even bought flowers from him out of goodwill — so I was shocked he would do something like this."

After watching the footage, A said he came to believe B had been sourcing flowers this way to sell them.

What happened four days later made the situation even more galling.

Around 8 p.m., B returned to the cafe carrying a few yellow lilies. A assumed he had come to apologize. He had not. Instead, B held out the bouquet and said, "These are flowers I grew myself — they'd look lovely in the cafe. I'll let them go for just 5,000 won."

When A replied, "I know everything," B shot back, "Know what?" As soon as A brought up the hydrangeas, B flew into a rage, shouting, "When did I ever take anything? What did I steal, you —"

A told B he had no intention of filing a police report but warned him that taking someone else's property without permission and profiting from it was a crime. "I'll let it go this time, but if you do this at another store or someone's garden and get caught, you'll end up at the police station," A said. B said he understood and left.

Meanwhile, A's girlfriend noticed the yellow lilies B had brought and said they appeared to have been cut from a municipal landscaping display directly across from the cafe. Additional footage A released showed yellow flower pots arranged in a garden in front of a nearby local government building.

Attorney Park Ji-hoon, who reviewed the footage, warned that taking someone else's property or financial assets — whether from a public roadside or a private owner — could constitute theft or another criminal offense.


jshan@heraldcorp.com