Jeju Police to Announce Investigation Results Into Officer's False Closure of Missing Persons Reports

Jeju police are scheduled to send the case regarding the false closure of missing persons reports to prosecutors today (Sept. 1) and reveal the investigation results.

Police plan to disclose the details of the investigation, including the motives of Police Officer A, who was arrested on charges of falsely closing the cases, at the Jeju Provincial Police Agency today.

Officer A is accused of lying to the reporter that they had made contact with a woman in her 30s surnamed Chang who was reported missing last May, closing the case arbitrarily, and falsely deleting Chang's data from the management list of the missing persons profiling system.

Officer A is also accused of falsely closing a missing person case involving a man in his 60s surnamed Park on August 2 using a method similar to the case involving Chang.

Today's police briefing may reveal some of the motives behind Officer A's actions uncovered during the investigation.

Officer A initially claimed to have contacted the missing persons, but confessed that it was a lie once police investigations began.

Police are verifying whether certain statements related to Officer A's motive for the crime are true.

The results of a full investigation into 298 missing persons cases closed by Officer A between March 10 of last year, when they worked on the missing persons team at the Jeju Seobu Police Station, and July 23 will also be released.

This full investigation aims to examine whether there are additional instances of missing persons reports being falsely closed among the 298 cases.

The full investigation is reported to be in its final stages.

Police investigations also showed that out of the 298 cases Officer A independently closed, 63 were either left unregistered in the missing persons profiling system or were deleted.

Excluding the unregistered and deleted cases from the profiling system among the 298 cases independently closed during their tenure on the missing persons team, Officer A handled 235 cases through independent closure.

This is a significantly higher figure compared to other officers who worked on the missing persons team during a similar period, such as Officer B with 137 cases and Officer C with 37 cases.

Police stated that there are no additional suspects booked besides Officer A so far.

The National Police Agency is conducting internal inspections of Officer A's commanding and supervising managers as well as fellow police officers, and plans to determine whether to pursue disciplinary action or criminal booking based on the results.

As the police investigation into this case comes to a close, attention is focused on how far the prosecutors' investigation will reach ahead of the abolition of prosecutors' supplementary investigation powers on October 2.

Prosecutors will take over the case today and launch a direct supplementary investigation for a month.

Once the case is transferred, prosecutors plan to summon Officer A based on the police investigation records to intensively investigate motives, additional false closure cases, and whether there were any casualties.

On August 24, the Jeju District Prosecutors' Office designated the head of Criminal Division 1 as the chief prosecutor for Officer A's case and formed a dedicated investigation team consisting of affiliated prosecutors.

Prosecutors stated that they will build a close cooperative system with the police from the initial investigation stage and thoroughly investigate to clearly uncover the reality of the matter.

This incident exposed loopholes showing that even when a missing person report is filed, the assigned police officer can independently and falsely close it, and the police system fails to manage or supervise it, thereby heightening public sentiment for "police reform."

The body of Ms. Chang was recovered at a location in Jeju on August 24, about 100 days after the initial report last May, and the man in his 60s, Mr. Park, was also found dead on August 24.
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.