Dongbu District Prosecutors' Office Opposes "Complete Prosecution Reform"... "Difficult to Investigate Sophisticated Voice Phishing"

Extensive Financial Investigation Experience... Preventing Additional Damage

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Jang Sehee] The prosecution pointed out that the ongoing push for 'Geomsu Wanbak' (complete removal of prosecutorial investigative authority) currently being discussed in the National Assembly will make it difficult to investigate crimes that infringe on the daily lives of ordinary citizens.

On the 26th, the Violent Crime Division of the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors' Office (Chief Prosecutor Lee Gonho) held a briefing and stated, "If the Geomsu Wanbak bill passes, supplementary investigations by the prosecution will become impossible, and crimes may not be properly identified," adding, "We anticipate harm to the public."

During the briefing, the prosecution referred to a recent case where four members of a voice phishing gang who embezzled approximately 7.8 billion KRW to China were arrested and indicted.

According to the prosecution, the Eastern District Prosecutors' Office indicted four individuals responsible for money laundering and overseas remittance in the voice phishing organization, which disguised about 1.5 billion KRW as export-import payments after multiple rounds of money laundering, on charges including violation of the Act on the Regulation of Concealment of Criminal Proceeds.

Chief Prosecutor Lee added, "In the process of conducting supplementary investigations on a simple case involving the transfer of 47 million KRW in cash, we utilized the prosecution's accumulated financial investigation capabilities to carry out multiple rounds of money tracking and search and seizure operations."

He evaluated, "By fully leveraging the long-accumulated financial investigation expertise, we were able to prevent the outflow of citizens' assets overseas and stop additional damages." He emphasized that experience in financial investigations over a long period is necessary to understand the flow of funds.

The prosecution introduced that, under the criminal law system revised last year, there are already significant restrictions on supplementary investigations.

Even if additional accomplices are discovered beyond the suspects transferred to prosecution, under the current criminal law system, supplementary investigations cannot be requested unless it is 'necessary for deciding whether to prosecute the transferred case,' limiting the tracking of accomplices and investigation of higher-level organization members.

They pointed out that it is impossible to strictly punish the upper echelons of criminal organizations when the scope of investigation is limited.

When asked about the prosecution's superior grounds for investigating voice phishing, Chief Prosecutor Lee said, "The police usually conclude investigations by arresting cash collectors, and I believe they lack the capacity to follow up to the higher-level organization members of the cash collectors."

He continued, "While the prosecution is not the only entity capable of conducting such investigations, I hope that situations where victims of crimes in the daily lives of individual citizens are not protected do not occur."

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