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Police Officer Bu, who was arrested on charges of illegitimately closing missing persons cases, is known to have deleted or failed to enter a total of 63 cases into the system, including the case of Chang. Reports indicate that he has recently made some statements regarding why he did so.
Reporter Jeong Jiyeon has the details.
[Reporter]
Police Officer Bu of the Jeju Western Police Station, who was arrested on the 25th, has reportedly started to speak out about why he illegitimately closed missing persons cases.
National Investigation Headquarters Chief Hong Seok-ki stated during a press briefing today (August 31) that "we are verifying whether the contents of Officer Bu's statements regarding his motive for the crime are true."
Officer Bu is accused of illegitimately closing a missing person case by entering it into the system as a "traffic accident fatality" without verifying the safety of an individual surnamed Chang, despite having checked the missing person's mobile phone location seven times after a missing person report was filed on May 15.
This occurred just two and a half hours after the missing person report was received.
Even on July 2, he checked the mobile phone location of a man in his 60s, but closed the case only about five hours after receiving the missing person report by entering false information stating that "contact was made and there is no intent to commit suicide."
The man in question was found dead 51 days after the missing person report, in Songdang-ri, Jeju-si, where his mobile phone location had been checked.
The number of missing persons cases independently closed by Officer Bu since March of last year stands at 298, accounting for about 30 percent of all cases in Jeju.
The police recently confirmed that out of these, 63 cases were either not entered into the missing persons profiling system at all or were deleted.
The Jeju Provincial Police Agency will hold a briefing tomorrow to announce the results of the investigation so far.
The police explained that regarding the management and supervisory responsibilities of the command line, which are being investigated through internal inspection, cases could be transitioned to formal investigations depending on the circumstances.
(Video Editing: Yoon Tae-ho, Design: Lee Ga-jin)
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