Korea Launches Major Crime Investigation Agency Amid Infrastructure Gaps

A day before the Major Crime Investigation Agency opens, the government submitted to the National Assembly on the 1st a request for a confirmation hearing on Kim Ji-yong, the nominee for agency chief, while Jeon Jong-min, an attorney at law firm Kn and a former judge, was tapped as deputy chief. Choi Jae-min, former head of the inspection division at the Seoul High Prosecutors' Office, will head the Seoul Regional Major Crime Investigation Agency. Although the agency announced its first personnel appointments a day before opening, the post of inaugural chief remains vacant and the agency faces shortages of staff and infrastructure, pointing to a rocky path toward a soft landing.

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety's task force preparing the agency's launch announced on the same day the planned appointments of seven first-grade investigators, including the deputy chief and regional office heads. Along with Jeon as deputy chief and Choi as head of the Seoul office, Kim Hyung-geun, a former assistant special counsel in the insurrection probe, and Lim Eun-jung, head of the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors' Office, were named to lead the Suwon and Gwangju regional offices, respectively.

Moon Hong-bu, an attorney at law firm Ilseon who previously served as a judge and as an assistant special counsel in the Kim Keon-hee investigation, is set to head the Daejeon regional office, while Hong Jong-hee, an auditor at the Korean Bar Association Legal Aid Foundation, will lead the Daegu office. Kim Ki-wook, an attorney at law firm Jeongryul who served as an assistant special counsel in the investigation into the alleged destruction of cash bundle wrappers, will head the Busan office.

Other deputy chiefs, bureau directors and division heads also received their formal assignments on the same day and will begin work on the 2nd, when the agency opens. Kim Jin-yong, deputy head of the launch preparation task force, and Shin Jun-ho, who led the preparation team for the chief nominee's confirmation hearing, were named second and third deputy chiefs of the Seoul office. Normally, appointments of first- and second-grade investigators and other senior officials require a recommendation from the agency chief and a nomination by the interior minister. With the chief's post vacant, the ministry made the appointments on its own authority without a recommendation.

While the appointments of the deputy chief and regional office heads mark a first step, concerns are emerging within and outside the legal community that it could take considerable time for the agency to settle in. Not a single case has been transferred from the prosecution service, and infrastructure including staffing, facilities and computer systems is not fully in place. The agency will begin operations with about 1,900 people, or 66.1% of its full authorized headcount. The Korea Information System of Criminal Justice Services, known as KICS, will initially run only essential functions before coming fully online in early December. Until then the agency is to use the police version of KICS, but that connection has not yet been established and is not currently working, according to officials. For at least several months, warrants for searches and seizures, arrests and detentions will have to be filed on paper.

A prosecution official said the service has largely sorted out which cases to hand over to the new agency, but added that transferring cases initiated by prosecutors "will take some time because the agency's systems are behind schedule and because we need to consult on how to classify the cases."

Construction at the agency's headquarters and its Seoul office has only just begun, pointing to further difficulties in getting operations under way. According to the legal community, bidding for construction supervision services covering building, mechanical and fire-safety work at the headquarters and the Seoul office has only recently started. The firm to carry out the supervision will be selected on the 8th of this month, a week after the agency formally opens. The supervision contract runs 90 days, extending into early next year. That raises the prospect of agency investigators questioning suspects while construction and supervision work is still under way.

With the abolition of the prosecution service becoming reality, some are also raising concerns about an outsized expansion of police power. Critics say that although problems within the police have surfaced one after another since investigative authority was expected to concentrate there, measures to check the power of the 140,000-strong police force, structural reforms to build investigative expertise and other safeguards have been relatively neglected.

Kim Jong-cheol, acting commissioner general of the Korean National Police Agency, held a nationwide meeting of investigation commanders on the same day, a day before the revised Criminal Procedure Act takes effect. "The public is watching closely to see whether the police have sufficient capability and whether we exercise our authority fairly and with restraint," he said. "I declare a shift to an emergency response posture until the new system takes full root in the field."

The police plan to establish a system requiring station chiefs to check daily on the handling of major cases and cases flagged by prosecutors. Provincial police agencies and the National Office of Investigation will conduct overlapping reviews to reinforce the monitoring system.

Procedures to protect rights, including interviews with victims and follow-up measures, will also be strengthened. To make investigative processes more transparent, the police will provide fuller explanations of case progress through online notifications. Where there are signs of serious misconduct such as fabrication of cases or bribery, the police say they will investigate aggressively and apply heavy disciplinary action, including dismissal, as a matter of principle.