Jeju police find no record behind viral taxi assault attempt video
Police said a widely viewed YouTube video mixed unverified allegations with old cases, deepening safety concerns amid a separate missing-persons scandal.
A palm tree grove in Hallim-eup, Jeju, where a woman was found dead on Sept. 4, more than 100 days after police prematurely closed her missing-person case
YONHAP
Jeju police said Tuesday that there is no record matching a YouTuber's account of a woman who said she fled an attempted assault when she woke up after falling asleep in a taxi — one of several unverified claims police say have fueled anxiety about safety on the island.
A YouTuber living on the island posted a video last week, claiming that a female friend of an acquaintance had been drinking until the early morning hours and had fallen asleep in a taxi. When she woke up, the taxi was allegedly in a reed field. The car was stopped, and the driver was outside on the phone with someone. She said she got out of the back seat while the driver was on the phone, fled through the reed field and later reported the incident to police.
The Jeju Special Self-Governing Provincial Police Agency said that after checking 112 emergency call records and the Korea Information System of Criminal Justice Services, they found no report matching the account.
The same video mentioned other incidents, but they are either from a decade ago or could not be recently verified, the police added.
The YouTuber described an incident in which a woman was choked with a phone charger cord in a public restroom near Jeju City Hall. She also claimed that Chinese nationals had used Jeju's visa waiver program to rob a gold shop and flee by plane, with some remaining unaccounted for after leaving the country.
Police said the restroom incident occurred in August 2016 and the gold shop robbery in May 2024, and that because the video gave no specific dates or locations, viewers could mistake the incidents for a recent string of crimes in Jeju, adding to public anxiety.
The 13-minute video, uploaded last Thursday, had 173,000 views as of Tuesday afternoon.
Last month, a Jeju police officer was referred to prosecutors on charges, including dereliction of duty and falsifying official records, after prematurely closing at least two missing-persons cases — including that of Jang Mi-ran, who was reported missing in May and found dead 104 days later. Prosecutors are now reviewing whether more of the roughly 300 missing-persons reports he handled between March 2025 and July 2026 were mishandled, after finding dozens had never been entered into the system or had records deleted. The scandal has fueled public distrust of Jeju police and left many residents on edge about safety on the island, providing the backdrop against which the YouTuber's unverified claims spread.
BY JANG GU-SEUL [[email protected]]
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
