Gangsters Reach Out to New Types of Crime... Police Conduct Special Crackdown for 4 Months

The National Police Agency's National Investigation Headquarters (Guksubon) will conduct a special crackdown on organized crime for four months starting from the 18th.

The main targets of this special crackdown are △ new types of fraud involving organized crime (such as leading rooms) and gambling, which are public concern promises (items 4 and 5) △ corporate and intelligent illegal activities such as illegal lending and front companies involving organized crime △ group assaults and violent acts at construction sites. The police plan to focus their investigative efforts mainly through the dedicated organized crime investigation teams (341 teams from the nationwide Criminal Mobile Unit and police stations, totaling 1,614 personnel).

So far, the police have established a specialized investigative system for organized crime and, based on years of accumulated investigative capabilities, have responded strongly, resulting in the arrest of 3,272 individuals for organized crime last year, among whom 642 were detained.

According to the police, over the past five years (2019?2023), the proportion of traditional organized crime offenses involving violence has decreased from 40.9% to 32.4%, while the proportion of gambling-related crimes, a representative type of new crime, has increased from 11.1% to 17.8%.

In particular, as cases have been confirmed where some organized crime members have participated in new types of fraud crimes (operating leading rooms, unlisted stock fraud) causing massive damage to unspecified many, intelligence gathering on new fraud crimes and gambling (public concern promises items 4 and 5) will be strengthened, and strict crackdowns on these crimes are planned.

Additionally, centered on the newly established Criminal Mobile Unit, when intelligence on gatherings of organized crime members is obtained, a response team will be operated from the early stages to proactively prepare for contingencies, and preventive activities to avoid conflicts among violent organization members will be actively promoted to eliminate public anxiety.

A National Police Agency official stated, “We will continue to suppress the expansion of existing violent organizations while strictly investigating new organizations and new types of organized crime, combining continuous crackdowns with systematic management. We ask for active reporting and cooperation from those who have suffered criminal damage from organized crime members or have witnessed such incidents.”

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