Police Did Not Provide a List of Seized Items
Court: "Insufficient Evidence to Prove the Charges"
A group charged with operating an illegal gambling website involving more than 28 billion won was acquitted due to the police’s presentation of only copies of search and seizure warrants and the unlawful collection of evidence.
According to Yonhap News on March 1, the Cheongju District Court Criminal Division 3 (Presiding Judge Ji Yunseop) acquitted nine individuals, including Mr. A (41), who had been indicted on charges of opening a gambling venue.
Mr. A and his associates were brought to trial on charges of operating an illegal gambling website for approximately six months from September 2021, during which they allegedly received gambling funds totaling more than 28 billion won. Previously, while investigating an investment fraud case, police discovered that an account linked to a suspect in that case was being used as an exchange account for the gambling website. They tracked the overseas IP addresses used in the account’s transactions and began investigating the illegal gambling website.
After tracking, the police confirmed that an office in a building in Cheongju City was using IP addresses through rerouting, and identified Mr. A and his group, who frequently visited the office, as the site’s operators. Subsequently, police conducted searches of financial institutions and confirmed that monthly rent, car rental fees, and expressway tolls for the group had been paid from the gambling website’s accounts. The police also secured photos related to the operation of the gambling website from Mr. A’s portal cloud account and, based on this, apprehended the suspects.
However, once on trial, Mr. A and his associates claimed, “The police conducted an unlawful investigation,” and asserted their innocence. They argued that the police presented only copies of the search and seizure warrants via fax to the financial institutions and portal companies during the search, rather than the original warrants, and that even after the seizure, the police did not provide a list of seized items to Mr. A and others. The police attempted to rectify the situation by later presenting the original warrants, but the court determined that this did not validate the previous procedure.
The court stated, “Under the Criminal Procedure Act, investigative agencies must present the original search and seizure warrant to the subject, and failure to do so cannot, as a rule, be considered a lawful execution of the warrant.” The court added, “Evidence collected in violation of procedure by investigative agencies cannot be used as evidence of guilt and will be excluded.” Furthermore, the court explained, “The investigative agencies did not conduct a search and seizure of the location suspected to be the gambling website’s office and therefore did not secure computers or other key evidence. In addition, they failed to obtain testimonial evidence from those involved in the operation of the gambling website. As a result, apart from the excluded evidence, no other evidence sufficient to prove the charges has been submitted.”
The court concluded, “Although there remains considerable suspicion that the defendants were involved in the operation of the gambling website, since the warrant was not executed lawfully and the evidence submitted by the prosecutor is insufficient to prove the charges, the defendants cannot be found guilty.”
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