About 10 Missing Person Cases Suspected of False Closure... Three Still Uncontacted

[Anchor]

It is reported that there are about 10 missing person cases where this police officer appears to have closed the cases without verification, similar to the case involving Jang Mi-ran. Among them, three people are reportedly still out of contact.

Reporter Cho Min-ki has the details.

[Reporter]

The arrest warrant hearing for Police Officer Boo took place at the Jeju District Court starting at 2:30 p.m. yesterday (August 25).

The hearing lasted about an hour, and Police Officer Boo did not answer questions from reporters as he left the court and headed to the detention center.

[Police Officer Boo: (Do you admit to the false closures?) ... (Did you make a mistake in data entry?) ...]

The court issued an arrest warrant for Police Officer Boo around 6:00 p.m., just about two and a half hours after the hearing ended.

The court explained the grounds for the arrest, stating there is a risk of flight and destruction of evidence.

Meanwhile, the police are conducting a full-scale investigation into 298 missing person reports handled by Police Officer Boo.

Among them, about 10 cases are reportedly suspected of having been falsely closed by Police Officer Boo on his own initiative, much like the Jang Mi-ran case.

Notably, three of these individuals are still known to be out of contact.

This raises the possibility that there may be three more missing persons in addition to Mr. A, a man in his 60s who was found dead in Gujwa-eup, Jeju City, on August 22.

The Jeju Provincial Police Agency has only repeated its stance that it is still assessing the current status, which is expected to be clarified further through subsequent investigations.

Meanwhile, it was found that in the case of Mr. A's disappearance, Police Officer Boo ignored the possibility of Mr. A's death even while being aware of it.

The bereaved family members of Mr. A, who initially filed a missing person report on July 2, reportedly told Police Officer Boo directly that her husband had left a message saying, "I failed in business and have a lot of debt. Eat well and live well."

They had conveyed their concern that Mr. A might take his own life.

However, Police Officer Boo closed the case after giving a false response to the family that he had made contact with the husband.

Ultimately, following a re-report by the family on August 21 and subsequent police searches, Mr. A was found dead in a skeletal state.

(Video reporting: Lee Sang-hak, Kang Myung-chul / JIBS, Video editing: So Ji-hye)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.