Public Officials Caught Illegally Diverting 'Gold' License Plate Numbers

[Anchor]

Public officials have been caught en masse for secretly diverting highly sought-after vehicle license plate numbers, known as "gold numbers"—such as '7777' or '1004'—to specific businesses. The local government confirmed that over 350 such numbers were leaked and has requested a police investigation.

KBC reporter Heo Jae-hee has the story.

[Reporter]

This is the Transportation Administration office, where new vehicle registrations and license plate issuance take place.

Following complaints that public officials might be diverting "gold numbers," the Seo-gu District Office in Gwangju conducted a full audit of 250,000 vehicle registration cases over four months, starting in February.

Under current law, 10 numbers are supposed to be randomly generated for the applicant to choose from, but it was discovered that some employees ignored this procedure.

The investigation revealed that when a "gold number" like '7777' appeared during the computer search process, the employees would register the vehicle and immediately cancel it to secure the number as a "reserved" plate. They then allegedly passed these diverted numbers to specific businesses.

Ten current and former employees were found to have diverted "gold numbers" to two vehicle registration agencies in this manner, and it is suspected that these businesses traded the secured numbers with vehicle owners.

A total of 350 numbers were illicitly diverted by the officials, with 66% of them registered to imported vehicles.

[Lee Seung-gyu / Audit Officer, Gwangju Seo-gu: It has been identified that there were requests from these businesses to allocate gold numbers to them whenever they appeared. We made decisions regarding disciplinary actions by comprehensively considering the persistence and repetitive nature of the acts, as well as the acceptance of entertainment.]

The Gwangju Seo-gu office has requested disciplinary action against six individuals and issued warnings or cautions to four others. It has also referred the case to the police to determine the exact nature of the charges, including whether any bribes were accepted.

[Ko A-ra / Lawyer: This is a serious matter that could involve violations of the license plate issuance procedure, the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act if solicitation was involved, the crime of falsifying or altering public electronic records if the computer system was manipulated, and even bribery if there was a quid pro quo.]

As the vehicle registration system in question is used by local governments nationwide, there are calls for a comprehensive inspection to see if similar cases exist elsewhere.

(Video by Kim Jong-won, KBC)

Reported by Heo Jae-hee, KBC
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.