▲ A Jeju police officer accused of wrongfully closing missing person cases leaves a court on the southern resort island, in this photo taken Aug. 25, 2026. (Yonhap)

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JEJU, South Korea, Sept. 1 (Yonhap) -- A Jeju police officer arrested for wrongfully closing two missing person cases that may have contributed to the deaths of the missing individuals claimed he did so to avoid an increased workload, police said Tuesday, confirming 25 additional suspected cases of false closures involving the officer.

The Jeju Provincial Police Agency made the announcement at a media briefing before referring the unidentified officer, who holds the rank of corporal, to prosecutors on charges including dereliction of duty and forgery.

"The officer stated to the effect that he had been complacent because the missing persons were ordinary adults and falsely closed the cases because he wanted to avoid the burden of handing them over, as there were many things to take care of if the cases remained open," the agency said.

The officer is accused of closing the case of a missing woman, only identified by her surname Jang, in May without confirming her safety and deleting her information from the police's missing persons profiling system. Jang's body was found on the island on Aug. 24.

The officer was also found to have prematurely closed another missing person case in July, and the body of the missing person, a man in his 60s, was found on Aug. 22.

The officer initially claimed that he had contacted the missing persons but admitted that he had lied when the police investigation began.

The Jeju police agency said investigators have uncovered 25 additional suspected cases of false closures, apart from the two cases, among 298 cases handled by the officer while he served on the Jeju Seobu Police Station's missing persons team from March last year to July this year.

In 10 of the 25 cases, the officer is suspected of falsely closing the cases without verifying the whereabouts of the missing individuals, though all of them were eventually found safe.

In the remaining 15 cases, the whereabouts of the missing individuals were confirmed, but the officer deleted their records after entering reasons such as death in a traffic accident or unnatural death.

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