Man Arrested While Attempting to Scale the World's Sixth-Tallest Skyscraper in South Korea

Authorities in Seoul, South Korea have detained a British man who was apprehended while attempting to climb the Lotte World Tower, the sixth-tallest building in the world, using no equipment and just his bare hands on Monday.

Self proclaimed free-climber George King-Thompson, 24, made it to the 72nd floor of the 123-story, 1,820-foot building on Monday, which is also the tallest building in the East Asian country and was the fifth tallest building in the world when it was completed in 2016. However, it was surpassed the following year by China's Ping An International Finance Centre at 1,966 feet tall.

More than 90 emergency, police, and other personnel were dispatched after King-Thompson was spotted scaling the building. Officials were eventually able to take him to a gondola lift and move him inside.

King-Thompson was carrying a small parachute in his backpack and had been planning to BASE jump off the top of the building, which refers to the oftentimes dangerous and illegal sport of jumping from fixed objects and using a parachute to land safely on the ground. The acronym stands for four categories of fixed objects from which one can jump: buildings, antennae, spans, and earth.

"Lotte staff had to go on a gondola lift to persuade him to stop when he was still climbing above the building’s 70th floor,” an official from the National Police Agency told the Guardian in a statement. "He finally gave in and we arrested him at the scene for obstruction of official business. He is currently being questioned at a police station in Seoul’s Songpa district."

This is not the first time King-Thompson's antics have run him afoul of the law. In 2019, he was arrested after scaling the Shard in London, the tallest skyscraper in the U.K. He was sentenced to six months in prison for the stunt but ultimately served three, after the building's owners pressed trespassing charges.

After being released from prison, King-Thompson went onto the 36-story Stratosphere tower in Stratford, East London. He was also reportedly arrested in 2022 for base-jumping off Europe’s tallest rollercoaster—the Red Force at Ferrari Land in Spain.

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In a pre-drafted press release, King-Thompson said he had hoped to “evade Korean authorities and get on a flight out of the country, immediately after performing the stunt," but the odds were evidently not in his favor. According to ABC News, company officials with Lotte Property & Development were expected to discuss what to do with King-Thompson—and ostensibly whether or not to press charges.