"Why Did You Falsely Close It?" Some Statements Emerge... "63 Cases Omitted"

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Police Officer Bu, who was arrested on charges of falsely closing missing persons cases in Jeju, has been found to have either deleted or failed to enter a total of 63 cases into the system, including the case of the late Mr. Chang. Police stated that Officer Bu is gradually providing statements regarding why he committed these acts.

Reporter Jeong Jiyeon has the details.

[Reporter]

It is reported that Police Officer Bu of the Jeju Seobu Police Station, who was arrested on the 25th, has begun to speak out about the reasons behind falsely closing the missing persons cases.

Hong Seokki, head of the National Office of Investigation, stated during a press briefing yesterday (the 31st), "We are verifying whether Officer Bu's statements regarding his motive for the crime are true."

Officer Bu is accused of falsely closing the case of Mr. Chang—whose missing persons report was filed on May 15—by entering it as a "traffic accident fatality" in the system without verifying his safety, despite having checked the mobile phone location seven times.

This was just two and a half hours after the missing persons report was received.

Even on July 2, after checking the mobile phone location of a man in his 60s, he closed the case about five hours after the missing persons report was received by entering false details stating, "He was reached and has no intention of committing suicide."

The man was found dead in Songdang-ri, Jeju City, where his mobile phone location had been identified 51 days after the missing persons report.

The number of missing persons cases that Officer Bu independently closed since March of last year stands at 298, accounting for about 30 percent of all cases in Jeju.

Police recently confirmed that among these, 63 cases were either never entered into the missing persons profiling system at all or were deleted.

The Jeju Provincial Police Agency will hold a briefing today to announce the results of the investigation thus far.

Police explained that regarding the management and supervisory responsibilities of the command chain—which are currently being handled through internal inspections—cases could be converted to formal investigations depending on the circumstances.

(Video by Yu Mira, Design by Lee Kajin)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.