Several senior officials from the district office that oversees the Itaewon area where the crowd crush occurred in October have claimed in the wake of the tragedy that they have since lost or changed their mobile phones.

According to the police on Thursday, Park Hee-young, head of the Yongsan District Office, replaced her Samsung Galaxy phone with a new iPhone on November 5, one week after the crowd crush.

A special police investigation team confiscated her iPhone during a raid of her office on November 8 but she initially refused to provide the password to investigators, only giving up the password two and a half weeks later after repeated requests.

Another Yongsan District official in charge of disaster safety also reportedly bought a new phone, claiming he dropped his previous phone in the toilet.

Police suspect they may have bought the new phones to conceal their whereabouts and contact history during the time of the crowd crush, and are considering requesting arrest warrants for these individuals over concerns that they may destroy evidence.