Daily Weird News Report
South Korea is reopening scrutiny of its missing-person system after a police officer was arrested on suspicion of falsifying records to close two cases involving people later found dead.
Police will review approximately 310,000 missing-person cases closed during the past three years, according to The Guardian World, citing reporting from Yonhap. The review is expected to finish by November, with cases suspected of being mishandled potentially reopened.
The officer worked on the missing-persons team at Jeju Western police station. Police accuse him of closing the case of 37-year-old Jang Mi-ran roughly two and a half hours after her partner reported her missing in May. He allegedly claimed to have contacted her and been told that she did not want her location revealed. Investigators say they found no record of that call.
Jang’s body was discovered 104 days after she was last seen, in a palm farm about 400 metres from where she had been staying. Police have not determined how she died.
The officer is also accused of closing the case of a man in his 60s on the day his family reported him missing in July. His body was later found. The officer denies wrongdoing, saying he had contacted both people before closing their cases, according to the Jeju Provincial Police Agency. He was arrested this week and faces charges including dereliction of duty and falsifying official electronic records.
South Korea’s president, Lee Jae Myung, ordered an investigation into the police response and directed the force to prepare reforms. Interior minister Yun Hojung apologised, saying the incident revealed a structural weakness in the handling of missing-person cases.
The scandal has also highlighted a legal distinction affecting missing adults. Under South Korean law, children, autistic people, and people with dementia or mental disabilities are formally classified as missing, allowing police to request phone-location data, send emergency alerts and compare family DNA. Other adults are generally classified as runaways, and those tools are not automatically available.
More than 70,000 people were reported missing in South Korea last year, with 99.7% of cases closed without a full-scale search. Of those reported cases, 931 people were found dead.
More than 10 bills aimed at extending search powers to missing adults have been introduced over the past decade, but none has passed. Supporters argue for broader police powers, while critics warn that tracking tools could be misused by creditors or abusive partners seeking people who have disappeared voluntarily.
