Prosecutors raid police offices over alleged mishandling of missing person cases on Jeju

Prosecutors on Tuesday raided multiple police agencies over suspicions that a police officer prematurely closed missing person cases on Jeju Island and falsified system records, officials said.

The Jeju District Prosecutors’ Office searched the Jeju Special Self-Governing Provincial Police Agency, the Jeju Seobu Police Station and the National Police Agency headquarters in Seoul, according to police and prosecution officials.

The raids come after a police officer on Jeju was found to have prematurely closed at least two missing person cases — one involving a woman surnamed Jang who went missing in May, and another involving a man who went missing in July — without verifying their safety.

Both people’s bodies were found on the island in recent weeks.

The prosecutors’ office said that investigators will look into the police’s profiling system for missing persons cases to determine how it operates, as the officer in question allegedly entered the system in administrator mode and inputted false reasons for the missing people’s disappearance before deleting the records.

The investigation could also examine whether senior police officials exercised proper supervision.

Separately, the Jeju provincial police agency recently discovered 25 other cases that the officer improperly closed between March 2025 and July this year and began investigating them.

Yonhap