Korea sees 36,000 foreign criminal suspects every year

The flag of the National Police Agency waves in front of its headquarters in Seoul. Korea Times file

Korea sees an annual average 36,000 criminal suspects of foreign nationality, a ruling lawmaker said, Thursday.

According to statistics that Rep. Chung Woo-taik of the ruling People Power Party obtained from the Korean National Police Agency, the number of foreign criminal suspects over the past five years amounted to 180,162, yielding an annual mean average of 36,032.

This year, 21,908 were caught by the police from January to August.

By type of crime, assault accounted for the largest portion with 22.2 percent (40,028).

Following, in order, were traffic crimes at 20.9 percent (37,670), intellectual crimes including fraud, forgery and embezzlement at 16.2 percent (29,108), theft at 8 percent (14,489) and rape and molestation standing at 2 percent (3,525).

Gambling cases numbered 2,280 (1.3 percent) while robbery stood at 361 (0.2 percent) and murder at 340 (0.2 percent).

Nearly half, or 49.5 percent of these, were Chinese nationals, who make up 37.8 percent (849,804) of the 2.2 million foreign residents of Korea as of 2022.

The nationalities of suspects following China in order were Thailand (8.4 percent), Vietnam (7.8 percent), the United States (4.8 percent), Russia (3.6 percent) and the Philippines (1 percent).

In June, the Incheon Metropolitan Police arrested 82 Thai nationals, some of whom were found to be undocumented, for allegedly controlling a large-scale drug trafficking crime ring. They were suspected of having smuggled nearly 2,000 tablets of “yaba,” a drug containing methamphetamine and caffeine, from January 2022 to May this year.

In response, the Ministry of Justice announced the launch of an intensive crackdown under the “one-strike policy” and vowed stern punishment of foreign nationals involved with drug crimes.

As Korea’s immigrant population increases, experts are calling for countermeasures to tackle the growing number of crimes committed by foreign nationals.

Choi Hong-man, a professor of Taegu Science University's Department of Defence Technology & Administration, noted that crimes committed by foreign nationals in Korea have grown more diverse, sophisticated and organized over time, according to his study published in the Journal of Social Convergence Studies last year.

Choi called for rigid enforcement on immigration and unregistered foreign residents as well as the application of judicial power on suspects to tackle the crimes.

However, the professor also highlighted the need to provide foreign residents with Korean language education and adopt policies that engage with multicultural communities to prevent recidivism and the spread of prejudice and discrimination against foreign nationals.

Chung called for “active crackdowns on crimes committed by foreigners” and urged the government to “block an inflow of foreign criminal organizations to Korea and prevent domestic crime by foreign residents from organizing networks and becoming influential.”