"Contact Made" 40 Days Later, Same Method... Why Try to Cover It Up?

[Anchor]

Not only the late Jang Mi-ran, but a man in his 60s reported missing whose case was also falsely closed by Police Officer Bu was found dead. Officer Bu closed the case by entering "whereabouts found" into the internal system. Police are focusing on the striking similarities in how both cases were handled.

This is the report from reporter An Huijae.

[Reporter]

The 60-year-old man, A, disappeared on June 28, and a missing person report was filed with the police four days later.

The person in charge was Police Officer Bu from the Jeju Western Police Station, who had also handled the case of the late Jang Mi-ran.

The family visited the police station in person and asked for help, stating that Mr. A had vanished after leaving words about "business failure and heavy debt," but the case was closed in about five and a half hours.

Officer Bu cleared the missing person status, claiming that "Mr. A refused to meet with police officers."

[Bereaved Family Member of Mr. A (on the 23rd): We were told, 'He doesn't want to contact his family, and if you give them my number, I will report it for violating the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection...']

Officer Bu entered the false code "whereabouts found" into the internal computer network and listed two phone numbers claiming they were used to speak with Mr. A. However, investigations revealed that one of them had nothing to do with Mr. A at all.

There was no call record between Officer Bu and Mr. A whatsoever.

It was only on the 22nd, a day after the case was re-reported, that Mr. A was found dead.

[Bereaved Family Member of Mr. A (on the 23rd): What good is it to find someone after they're dead? What good is it now?!]

Police are paying close attention to Officer Bu's methods, which were repeated about 40 days after falsely closing Jang's case.

Both cases are carbon copies, featuring lies that "contact was made" and fake reasons for clearing the missing status entered into the system. This is likely because the police's "missing person profiling system" excludes cases from further management simply by entering clearance codes such as death, whereabouts found, or voluntary return, potentially exploiting this loophole to bury cases.

Police, who have launched a full investigation into all cases handled by Officer Bu, stated that no other issues have been found so far besides the cases of Jang and Mr. A. However, with the number of target cases reaching 298, the possibility of uncovering further illegal case handlings remains.

(Video Editing: Kim Jong-mi, Design: Im Chan-hyuk, Park Cheon-woong)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.