A police officer in Jeju has been urgently arrested for allegedly falsifying the closure of a missing person report involving 37-year-old Jang Mi-ran, who has been missing for over three months.
The Jeju Police Agency announced that at 3:29 p.m. on August 22, they arrested Officer A from the Jeju Western Police Station on charges of dereliction of duty, forgery of public documents, and obstruction of official duties. The arrest followed a comprehensive investigation into cases handled by Officer A, which revealed additional instances of false closures.
According to reports from Yonhap News, police confirmed on August 21 that a separate missing person case, which Officer A had closed on July 2, was also falsely concluded, similar to the Jang case. Further evidence emerged indicating that Officer A had closed other missing person cases without verifying the facts.
Previously, Officer A had reported on May 15 that he had made contact with Jang while processing her missing person report, leading to the case's closure. However, both Jang's phone records and an internal police investigation found no evidence of any communication between Officer A and Jang.
Notably, Officer A closed the case approximately two and a half hours after the initial report was filed. Jang was last seen leaving her home in Hallim-eup, Jeju City, at 10:15 p.m. on May 12, carrying only her mobile phone, and her whereabouts remain unknown.
Evidence has also surfaced indicating that Officer A deleted internal management records during the handling of the missing person case. The Jeju Police Agency has identified that Officer A entered information related to Jang's disappearance into the police's 'Missing Profiling System' but deleted it from the management list upon closing the case.
According to Yonhap, police have been conducting focused searches around Hallim Port in Jeju City, where Jang's phone location was last confirmed, since August 20. Authorities, including the police and coast guard, are utilizing helicopters, drones, scent-tracking dogs, divers, and patrol boats in their efforts to locate Jang.
The Jeju Police Agency's Anti-Corruption and Economic Crime Investigation Unit plans to investigate the overall handling of cases, including the additional false closures attributed to Officer A, to determine if there are any further offenses.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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