SEOUL, Police on Tuesday arrested two teenagers for drawing 44-meter-long graffiti on the walls of a historic palace in central Seoul last weekend, officials said.

Police caught a 17-year-old male at his home in Suwon, 30 kilometers south of Seoul, on Tuesday evening before arresting his 16-year-old female accomplice nearby minutes later, according to the Seoul Jongno Police Station.

On Saturday, the suspects repeatedly sprayed the phrase "free movie" in Korean with red and blue paint on both sides of the western gate to Gyeongbok Palace and palace walls near the National Palace Museum of Korea.

Also sprayed were the names of illegal video-sharing and streaming platforms, with similar graffiti also found on the walls of the nearby Seoul Metropolitan Agency.

The duo are accused of violating the Cultural Heritage Protection Act.

The police said they are looking into the motive of the crime and whether there are any accomplices.

The vandals are known to have carefully dodged the many surveillance cameras nearby, making it harder to detect them.

Based on the analysis of the cameras, the police had identified the suspects as a man and a woman and had been tracking them with search and arrest warrants.

Another suspect, who is accused of vandalizing the western gate to the main palace Sunday in an alleged copycat crime, turned himself in to police the following day.

Gyeongbok Palace, which was a main palace of Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910), is a state-designated historic site, with the affected gate and the walls all recognized as cultural heritage.

Source: Yonhap News Agency