Fabricated calls and erased files kept two deaths hidden. Now, a force prone to cover-ups is inheriting unchecked authority
4-MIN READ4-MINPark Chan-kyongPublished: 8:00am, 27 Aug 2026On a farm up in the hills of South Korea’s Jeju Island, investigators this week uncovered what a mother had spent three months fearing they would not find: the body of her daughter.Jang Mi-ran, 37, vanished without a trace in May. Police records would later show her case had been quietly closed without anyone ever verifying if she was alive.
It was the second such discovery in a matter of days. The first was the skeletal remains of a man in his sixties, found on Saturday after his family warned officers he had spoken of suicide and left his children a farewell message.
Both cases had passed through the hands of the same officer, identified only by his surname Bu, who allegedly told worried relatives he had personally traced and spoken to the missing individuals – conversations investigators say never took place.
What began as a local scandal on the southern resort island has since turned into a far larger debate, on whether South Korea’s national police force is fit to inherit the sweeping investigative powers it is about to receive.
