'Prosecutors Launch Compulsory Investigation into Falsely Closed Missing-Person Cases'—Simultaneous Searches of Jeju Police Agency and Western Station

【Financial News Jeju = Yong-bok Jeong】 Prosecutors have simultaneously searched the Jeju Provincial Police Agency and Jeju Western Police Station in connection with the false closure of missing-person reports in Jeju, seeking to secure internal police records.
According to investigative authorities on the 8th, the Jeju Provincial Prosecutors' Office sent investigators that morning to the criminal affairs division of the Jeju Provincial Police Agency and the station chief’s and criminal affairs chief’s offices at Jeju Western Police Station to conduct searches and seizures. Prosecutors are understood to be securing documents and electronic data related to the handling of missing-person cases.
The searches came one week after Officer A of Jeju Western Police Station was transferred to prosecutors in custody on the 1st on charges of dereliction of duty, fabricating and using fabricated official electronic records, and obstructing official duties by deceptive means. After taking over the case and reviewing the records, prosecutors began a compulsory investigation targeting the police organization.
The inclusion of the station chief’s and criminal affairs chief’s offices at Jeju Western Police Station is particularly notable. The police agency had already placed four officials who were part of the station’s command line at the time—including two station chiefs, the criminal affairs chief, and the missing-persons team leader—on standby pending investigation. It has also been conducting an internal inspection into their responsibility for command and supervision.
On August 24, while the police investigation was underway, the Jeju Provincial Prosecutors' Office designated the case as “a serious matter directly linked to the lives and safety of the public” and formed a dedicated investigative team led by the chief of Criminal Division 1 as the lead prosecutor. At the time, prosecutors said they would clarify the full facts of the case.
The scope of the case has also expanded significantly from the two missing-person reports initially identified. A review by the Jeju Provincial Police Agency of the 298 missing-person cases handled by Officer A while assigned to the missing-persons team found 25 additional instances of improper handling, beyond the two cases already under investigation.
Ten of the additional cases involved closing reports as though the missing persons’ whereabouts had been confirmed without contacting them or checking their safety. In the remaining 15 cases, the missing persons’ safety had been confirmed, but the missing-person profiling system was entered with closure reasons that did not match the facts, such as death under suspicious or unnatural circumstances. Including the original two cases, the total number of improperly handled cases is 27.
The two missing persons in the initial investigation were each found dead after their cases had been falsely closed. However, no direct causal relationship between the false closures and the deaths has been established. Police previously explained that Officer A had stated, in substance, that the cases were falsely closed because failing to close them would have created the burden of continuing handovers and follow-up work.
The focus of the prosecutors’ investigation is not limited to determining the charges against Officer A and how the additional 25 cases were handled. Because the search targets include the police agency’s criminal affairs division and the command offices of a frontline police station, a key issue going forward will be whether investigators secure records showing how internal approval, management, and supervision procedures operated while missing-person reports were being falsely closed.
[email protected] Yong-bok Jeong Reporter