Police have caught over 1,800 people and arrested around 20 individuals in a special crackdown on local corruption.

The National Office of Investigation under the Korean National Police Agency announced today (September 20) that it cracked down on 1,863 individuals related to local corruption and forwarded 729 of them to the prosecution over the past six months starting in March.

Twenty-seven individuals facing grave charges have been arrested.

By category, abuse of authority—such as exerting undue pressure on related parties or receiving work-related bribes—accounted for the largest share at 841 people, or 45.1 percent.

This was followed by financial corruption involving siphoning off public funds by fabricating documents or inflating expenditures with 814 people, followed by misuse of internal information with 126 people, illegal contracts with 67 people, and illegal negligence with 15 people.

By status, public officials accounted for 803 people, while private enterprise personnel and others totaled 703 people.

Police explained that numerous cases were identified where public officials with licensing authority and private enterprises aiming to secure vested interests colluded through brokers.

Police designated illegal private contracts—where local public officials obtain profits through proxy-named companies or family corporations—as "Priority Investigation Task No. 1," cracking down on 33 cases and 124 people.

Among them, 44 people were sent to prosecutors, 5 were arrested, and 76 are under investigation.

In Gyeongsangnam-do, a budget-handling public official at a township office was arrested on charges of embezzling approximately 1.39 billion won by covertly accessing the administrative information system to process expenditure resolutions while the head and deputy head of the township were away.

In Gangwon-do, 3 people, including a public official, were apprehended on charges of operating an environmental company related to their duties under a borrowed name while concealing it from the local government, and signing private contracts worth 55 million won to supply pest repellent.

Police plan to continue the special crackdown until October 31 and launch "Special Crackdown 2.0 on Regional Collusive Corruption" starting in November.

Hong Seok-ki, head of the National Office of Investigation, emphasized, "Local corruption is a grave crime that destroys the fairness of local communities and residents' trust in national policies," adding, "We will thoroughly track down the links of corruption and sternly punish them."
 

(Photo: Yonhap News)