LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — Newly obtained court documents reveal how Las Vegas Metro Police were able to track down and locate the man accused of arson after he allegedly set several vehicles on fire at a local Tesla collision center last month.
A 21 page document reveals how several elements came into play as metro police used several forms of surveillance and DNA technology to locate and take 36 year old Paul Kim into custody just over a week after the arson incident.
“They’re fully engulfed, like this guy must’ve hated Tesla or something because he spray painted on the building, he just started desecrating all of the vehicles and, yeah, making all these shots and everything. it’s pretty intense.” said one 9-1-1 caller who alerted police of the March 18, 2025 incident.
After a weeks long worth of surveillance using business and residence surveillance as well as cell tower data, LVMPD, FBI investigators were able to track Kim’s vehicle; a 2023 Black Hyundai Elantra which was seen at the scene of the crime around 2:45 am on March 18.
Did you see anybody around there? “no, I was I heard like shots. I Don’t know if they were gunshots, and I was checking my camera, and I did see that there was a car parked down the street.. Unfortunately, my camera couldn’t really catch or wasn’t good enough to see the license plate or anything, but I did see a guy going to the car shortly,” said another caller to 9-1-1 dispatch operators.
Further details of the investigation also show how detectives used the surveillance to map out the paths Kim traveled around the time of the crime, but also show how DNA evidence was collected from molotov cocktail bottles found at the scene which matched the DNA of a male suspect..
“There’s a Tesla store behind my house, and one of the Teslas just caught fire, and a lot of like – one other one is smoking right now. Two of them are on fire right now, one smoking” another caller told 9-1-1 dispatchers,
After using license plate readers to collect more data investigators tracked down Kim’s home address near Flamingo and Mountain Vista where they observed him leaving his apartment carrying three duffle bags, later arriving at the Venetian Hotel and Casino where LVMPD officers made contact and took Kim into custody on March 26.
Kim is scheduled for a pretrial hearing on April 10th.
