▲ National Police Agency
Police officers who investigated fake news claiming the government would force the sale of U.S. dollars due to an economic crisis originating in the Middle East have received special performance rewards.
The National Police Agency announced today (July 13) that it awarded a total of 97 million won across 11 cases following a special performance reward committee meeting held on July 7.
The special performance reward system for police, which was implemented in January, has been issued for the sixth time this year, with rewards of up to 30 million won available per case.
Lieutenant Lee Jin-hyung and two others from the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency's Cyber Crime Investigation Unit 2 received 15 million won for referring five individuals to the prosecution on charges of violating the Framework Act on Telecommunications for spreading the "forced dollar sale" rumors.
The National Police Agency reported that the investigation team faced difficulties early on as there were few clues to identify the suspects and a lack of similar precedents or reference cases regarding the spread of false information.
"We moved away from the conventional method of focusing on identifying posters based on data secured from internet service providers," Lieutenant Lee Jin-hyung said. "Instead, we shifted our investigation to reverse-tracking the creation and dissemination process of the false posts, which allowed us to identify the suspects."
President Lee Jae-myung also praised the achievement after receiving a report on the response to false and manipulated information related to the Middle East situation, saying, "Send them some pizza." The National Police Agency noted that the pizza actually arrived that same day.
The investigators remarked, "We were skeptical, but the pizza under the President's name arrived at the office that afternoon, and it is something that will stay in our memories for a long time."
In addition, three members of the Gyeongnam Provincial Police Agency's Cyber Crime Investigation Unit, who apprehended 63 individuals (five of whom were arrested) for operating gambling sites worth 1.3 trillion won, and Lieutenant Park Jae-han and two others from the Ulsan Provincial Police Agency's Crime Prevention and Response Division, who apprehended 23 individuals (three of whom were arrested) for running a gambling site with 3.3 billion won in stakes for three weeks, each received 7 million won.
Yoo Jae-sung, Acting Commissioner General of the Korean National Police Agency, stated, "We will continue to actively identify officers who achieve exceptional results that the public can feel, and firmly establish a performance-oriented organizational culture."
(Photo: Yonhap News TV, Yonhap News)
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