No. of criminals fleeing overseas nears 4,000 over past 5 years

An officer stands guard at the National Police Agency in Seoul in this undated photo. Korea Times file

The number of criminal offenders fleeing overseas over the past five years has been tallied at about 3,800, but only 1,740 have been brought back to Korea, according to a lawmaker, Tuesday.

Rep. Chung Woo-taik of the ruling People Power Party released data he received from the National Police Agency, which shows a total of 3,779 criminals fled overseas from 2019 to this September.

Among the 3,779, fraudsters accounted for the biggest portion at 50.5 percent, followed by those who committed crimes related to gambling at 15.2 percent. Drug criminals and sex offenders accounted for 6.1 percent and 4 percent, respectively.

However, only 1,740, which is less than half, have been brought back to the country during the same period.

Nearly 26 percent of the criminals traveled to China to evade the Korean authorities, while 22.9 percent chose the Philippines and 11.2 percent went to Cambodia.

In September, police caught a man in his 40s at a casino in the Vietnamese city of Da Nang after he fled to the Southeast Asian country in August following a credit union heist in Daejeon.

The man was suspected of robbing a branch of the National Credit Union Federation of Korea in Daejeon on Aug. 18, threatening employees with a weapon. He departed for Vietnam some two days after stealing 39 million won in cash ($29,000), according to the Daejeon Police Agency.

The agency said that the police cooperated closely with Interpol and Vietnamese authorities to apprehend the man and bring him back to Korea.

In another case, a 25-year-old Korean national surnamed Lee, who was suspected of organizing a drug scam in which drug-laced beverages were distributed to teenage students in Seoul’s Gangnam District in April, was caught in China in May but has yet to be brought back to Korea.

“Monitoring and analysis of criminals fleeing overseas should be enhanced so police can apprehend them more effectively,” Rep. Chung said.