South Korean police to review 310,000 missing persons cases after falsification scandal

South Korean police will re-examine about 310,000 missing persons cases closed over the past three years, prompted by a scandal in which an officer was arrested on suspicion of falsifying records to close files on two people who were later found dead.

The case has drawn national attention, with President Lee Jae Myung ordering an investigation into the police handling of it and telling the force to draw up a reform plan.

The interior minister, Yun Hojung, apologised to the public on Wednesday, saying the case had exposed a structural flaw in the way police handle missing persons.

The scandal has renewed scrutiny of how South Korea handles missing adults. More than 70,000 were reported missing last year, with 99.7% of cases closed without a full-scale search. Of those, 931 people were found dead.

Under Korean law, only children, autistic people, and people with dementia or mental disabilities are formally treated as missing.

That status allows police to request phone location data, issue emergency alerts to every phone in the area and match family DNA. Everyone else is classified as a runaway, with none of those tools automatically available.

The arrested officer worked on the missing persons team at Jeju Western police station on the southern holiday island.

He is accused of closing the file on a 37-year-old woman, Jang Mi-ran, about two and a half hours after her partner reported her missing in mid-May. The officer allegedly told him he had contacted her and that she did not want her location disclosed, but police say they found no record of such a call.

Her body was found on Monday in a palm farm about 400 metres from where she had been staying, 104 days after she was last seen. Police have not established a cause of death.

The same officer is also accused of closing the case of a man in his 60s on the day his family reported him missing in early July. His body was found on Saturday. Separately, two other people reported missing in Jeju were found dead.

The officer has denied wrongdoing, saying he had contacted the two missing people before closing the 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.

The review is due to be completed by November, the Yonhap news agency reported, with any cases suspected of improper handling to be reopened.

In the past decade, politicians have introduced more than 10 bills to extend search powers to missing adults, but none has passed.

Critics say adults should be free to disappear if they choose and warn that police tracking powers would be exploited by creditors chasing debtors and by abusers looking for partners who have fled.