[Anchor]

Police urgently arrested a police officer yesterday (the 22nd) on charges of falsely closing a missing person case in Jeju. It was revealed that the same officer also falsely closed another missing person case that occurred last month, and that missing person was eventually found dead.

Reporting is Lee Se-hyeon.

[Reporter]

This is CCTV footage showing Jang Mi-ran for the last time on May 13.

A missing person report was filed two days later at 6:43 PM, and police conducted a door-to-door search around Hallim Port in Jeju, where the mobile phone location data appeared, but failed to find Jang.

Meanwhile, Police Inspector A, a man in his 30s affiliated with the Jeju Western Police Station, closed the 112 emergency report by claiming, "I spoke with the missing person on the phone, and she asked not to disclose her location." Police halted the search at 9:16 PM.

An investigation revealed that when closing the case, Inspector A completely deleted Jang's information from the police's internal missing person profiling system.

Inspector A also failed to follow the internal police missing person investigation manual.

To prevent someone else from pretending to be a missing person over the phone and obstructing the investigation, police are required to face-to-face verify the missing person when closing a case, but this rule was ignored.

Police also confirmed that Inspector A falsely closed another missing person case, which had been cleared on July 2, in the same manner as the Jang Mi-ran case.

In the case from last month, a re-report was filed the day before yesterday, which additionally brought to light Inspector A's false closure of the case, and the missing person was ultimately found dead.

Police understand that there is no connection to a crime in the case of the second missing person.

The Jeju Provincial Police Agency urgently arrested Inspector A yesterday afternoon on charges including dereliction of duty, forgery and uttering of official electronic records, and obstruction of official duties by fraudulent means.

Experts say that specific laws dealing with missing person cases are necessary.

[Lee Geon-soo / Professor of Police and Criminal Investigation, Baekseok University: We need to enact a missing persons act without age restrictions so that investigations can begin immediately whenever anyone goes missing, whether they are a child, woman, or adolescent. Missing person cases are a battle against time. That is why the law is necessary.]

Police also arrested a teenager, identified as B, on charges of violating the Stalking Punishment Act after he sent text messages and made calls 17 times to the phone number disclosed by Jang's family, saying, "If you let me hear a moan, I will help you find the missing person."

Police stated that they have also taken Emergency Measure No. 2 against B to block telecommunication-based contact.

(Video Editing: Lee Seung-yeol, Design: Cho Su-in)