Police launch nationwide manhunt for sex criminals at large

Police will mobilize all possible measures to apprehend fugitive criminals involved in more than 9,000 sex offenses over the past five years, the nation's police chief said Monday.

Of 81,860 sex-related crimes including rape and sexual molestation that took place between 2007 and 2011, 9,189 cases, or 11.2 percent, have yet to be resolved, according to the National Police Agency (NPA).

"An order has been issued for the apprehension of all sex offenders in cold cases in a bid to root out sex-related crimes," Kim Ki-yong, the commissioner of the NPA, told reporters.

"A separate team in charge of dealing with unsolved violent sex crimes will be set up as well," he said.

The announcement came as public outrage has mounted over a recent string of violent sex offenses and numerous calls have been made for law enforcement to employ every means to tackle them.

Police investigators, in particular, will concentrate on catching 169 suspected sex offenders who are at large, the NPA said, adding that the agency will devote extensive resources to the investigation to close the case more efficiently.

"A total of 999 police officers handling cyber crimes have launched an active crackdown on 250 Internet Web sites featuring pornography," Kim said.

"The police agency plans to request cooperation from internal law enforcement agencies since many of the explicit materials featuring children are produced in foreign countries," he added.

Meanwhile, the NPA said it has stepped up efforts to come up with measures to counter the spread of child pornography, in cooperation with local Internet operators and civic groups.

The country's major portal operators, including NHN Corp. and Daum Communications Corp., several civic groups, and academia gathered on Monday to discuss ways to block sharing and selling of child porn on the Internet.

"These days, child pornography is also distributed through new channels such as smartphones, indicating there must be more cooperation with smartphone makers and application developers," a police officer at the NPA said.

"The NPA suffers from a shortage of police personnel, while the number of reported sex crimes has soared," the officer added.

"Employing more officers and increasing cooperation with specialists in specific fields of investigation would be a long-term solution to arrest more suspects," he added.

The NPA said it will set up a hotline so that as soon as child pornography is detected on the Internet, the system will immediately alert portal operators and police officers in charge. (Yonhap)