Economic Crimes Surge Amid Complex Recession... Police Strengthen Integrated Investigation Team

Integration of Economic, Intelligence, and Cyber Investigation Teams
Expansion to Busan, Gwangju, and Gangwon Police Agencies
Considering Workforce Increase and Infrastructure Enhancement to Combat Economic Crimes Amid Recession

Seodaemun-gu, Seoul Police Agency building. Photo by Mun Ho-nam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] The police will expand the 'Integrated Investigation Team' system, which has been piloted at the Incheon and Northern Gyeonggi Police Agencies, to more than four agencies next year. This aims to maximize investigative efficiency in response to increasingly sophisticated and intelligent economic crimes amid the deepening economic crisis.

According to a comprehensive report from our coverage on the 26th, the National Investigation Headquarters of the National Police Agency recently presented this blueprint at the major business plan briefing for next year. The plan involves reorganizing the previously separated economic team, intelligence team, and cyber investigation team into an integrated investigation team. Since February last year, the integrated investigation team system has been piloted at the Incheon Police Agency and Northern Gyeonggi Police Agency. Next year, there are plans to expand this system to the Busan, Gwangju, Sejong, Chungnam, and Gangwon Police Agencies.

This change comes as it has become difficult to respond efficiently due to the increase in crimes with blurred boundaries or unstructured cases caused by recent social environmental changes. In particular, in the case of telephone financial fraud (voice phishing), which is referred to as economic murder crime, the main method used to be non-face-to-face account transfers, but as the methods have evolved, there have been frequent overlaps in the work areas of the investigation and criminal departments.

The economic situation, where a complex recession accompanied by the 'three highs (high inflation, high interest rates, and high exchange rates)' is taking hold, is also known to have influenced the expansion of the integrated investigation teams. The police expect that economic crimes such as fraud will run rampant next year targeting citizens desperate to recover losses from 'debt investment' and other causes, as one-shot mentality tends to prevail more in difficult economic times. To respond to the increasing demand for economic crime investigations, restructuring the investigative system is inevitable.

The police are also reportedly considering increasing investigative personnel to respond to economic crimes. They are reviewing internal personnel reallocations within the National Police Agency to add at least one field investigator per team in economic teams of police station investigation departments. This is also part of Police Commissioner Yoon Hee-geun's Field Experience Promise No. 4. In October, Commissioner Yoon announced, "We will increase frontline investigators by more than 1,000."

Since the adjustment of investigative authority between the prosecution and police, investigative departments such as economic teams have been considered undesirable within the police. As the workload increased significantly, even veteran investigators turned away. As a result, the proportion of investigators with less than one year of experience in economic teams at police stations nationwide has exceeded 20%. The average case processing time per investigator also increased significantly from 55.6 days before the investigative authority adjustment to 66.7 days last month, an increase of 11 days.

The police are promoting the strengthening of investigative infrastructure to meet the increasing demand for economic crime investigations and to overcome the avoidance of investigations. Measures include increasing the investigation budget and improving the treatment of investigators. This means creating conditions where investigative capabilities can be fully exercised. A police official said, "Since the adjustment of investigative authority, we have been striving to turn 'departing investigations into returning investigations,' and we will focus our efforts on the early establishment of essential infrastructure."