Officer arrested after second Jeju missing-person case found falsely closed

A Jeju police officer already under suspicion for falsely closing a missing-person case has been arrested after investigators found he fabricated the resolution of a second case as well.

According to the Jeju Provincial Police Agency, officers arrested Officer A of the Jeju Western Police Station at around 3:29 p.m. Saturday at an undisclosed location in Jeju. He faces charges of dereliction of duty, forgery of electronic public records, uttering of forged records and obstruction of official duties by deception.

Investigators had been examining a separate missing-person case that Officer A closed on July 2, and on Friday confirmed it had been falsely resolved — in the same manner as the case involving missing woman Jang Mi-ran.

In the Jang case, Officer A had reportedly filed a report claiming he had made direct contact with Jang before closing the case.

A review of Jang's phone records, however, turned up no evidence that the two had ever spoken. An internal investigation at the station where Officer A worked also found no basis for the claim that the two had been in contact.

With a second falsified closure confirmed in another case he handled, police moved to compel his arrest.

The Jeju Provincial Police Agency's anti-corruption and financial crimes unit plans to investigate the full circumstances of how Officer A handled the cases and determine whether similar irregularities exist in any other missing-person cases he processed.