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Police will set up dedicated investigation teams at provincial and metropolitan agencies and deploy specialist officers at individual police stations to strengthen the recovery of criminal proceeds.

The Korean National Police Agency announced Tuesday that it would "upgrade its criminal proceeds tracking and investigation system to thoroughly confiscate and collect proceeds from crimes that harm people's livelihoods — such as illegal private lending and new forms of fraud — and to deliver real victim relief."

Starting in the second half of this year, the agency will split the existing criminal proceeds tracking units at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency and the Gyeonggi Province South Police Agency into two separate teams: a "criminal proceeds preservation team," which will handle asset preservation, and a "financial investigation team," which will handle the detection and investigation of money-laundering crimes. Financial investigation teams are also planned for the Incheon, Gyeonggi Province North and South Gyeongsang Province agencies from the first half of next year.

The agency will also extend dedicated criminal proceeds tracking personnel — previously concentrated at the provincial and metropolitan agency level — down to individual police stations, bolstering their capacity to preserve criminal proceeds on the front lines of everyday crime response. Major police stations will begin receiving dedicated criminal proceeds preservation officers in the second half of this year.

Police first introduced criminal proceeds tracking units in 2019, and through sustained investment in investigative capability, the number of preservation cases and amounts recovered grew sharply — from 96 cases worth 70.2 billion won ($49.6 million) in 2019 to 3,400 cases worth 850 billion won last year.

The overhaul comes as money-laundering and concealment methods grow increasingly sophisticated, and as a series of legal mechanisms for blocking criminal funds have been put in place — including account payment suspensions for voice phishing under the Telecommunications Fraud Victim Relief Act, transaction freezes on accounts suspected of new-type scams under the Specific Financial Information Act, and asset freezes under the Virtual Asset User Protection Act. The proliferation of these tools has created a pressing need for a specialized investigative framework to deploy them systematically.

Hong Seok-gi, head of the National Investigation Headquarters, said financial investigation and criminal proceeds preservation are "core investigative procedures for delivering real relief to victims," adding that police would "continuously expand the focus of investigations from arrest and punishment toward victim recovery, and make that recovery a reality."


arin@heraldcorp.com