Allegations of Collusion in Government Project Contracts, Customs Office Clerk 'Reported'

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] A level 6 officer in the Information Cooperation Division of the Korea Customs Service has been reported for allegations of collusion with a company that won a government project.

According to the Korea Customs Service on the 26th, the Daejeon Metropolitan Police Agency has booked and is investigating Customs Service officer A on charges including official secret leakage and obstruction of business.

Earlier, the Korea Customs Service confirmed officer A's misconduct through a recent inspection and reported it to the police. Officer A was reportedly the practical manager of the Customs Service’s “Artificial Intelligence X-ray Interpretation System Construction Project,” responsible for planning and commissioning various research and implementation tasks.

The project began in 2019 and was scheduled to be completed this year, with a total budget of 7.2 billion KRW. The Customs Service spent 4.6 billion KRW in the first year and 1.9 billion KRW last year to carry out the project, but after confirming officer A’s misconduct, the execution of this year’s project budget (700 million KRW) has been canceled.

Officer A is currently on standby, and the police are reportedly investigating whether officer A had a collusive relationship with the major shareholder of the company that won the contract for the interpretation system construction project.

The Korea Customs Service confirmed that “it is true that officer A was reported to the police,” but added, “However, since the police investigation is ongoing, we cannot provide detailed information.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.