Prosecutors Conduct Substantial Supplementary Investigations in About 46% of Cases Referred by Police

Survey Conducted at 12 Major Prosecutors' Offices in March and April Last Year

It has been found that prosecutors are directly conducting substantial supplementary investigations in nearly half of the cases they receive from the police, specifically about 46% of such cases.

Seoul Seocho District Office of the Supreme Prosecutors' Office. Photo by Yonhap News

The Supreme Prosecutors' Office announced on June 1 that, after analyzing statistics on cases referred in March and April 2025 at 12 major prosecutors’ offices under the six regional high prosecutors' offices nationwide, supplementary investigations were conducted in 25,152 cases, accounting for 45.59% of the total 55,174 cases handled. In March, supplementary investigations were conducted in 12,422 out of 26,426 cases (47.01%), while in April, 12,730 out of 28,748 cases (44.28%) underwent supplementary investigation.

In this survey, the category classified as supplementary investigation refers to investigative actions personally conducted by prosecutors. These actions include: ▲direct detection and investigation of perjury or false accusations and related crimes ▲direct preparation of statements for suspects and witnesses ▲drafting investigation reports based on interviews and analysis of materials ▲prosecutors directly requesting warrants (for communications, bank accounts, search and seizure, arrest, or detention) without police application ▲direct requests for preservation of confiscated assets ▲fact-finding inquiries ▲video-recorded interrogations ▲referrals for criminal mediation. All of these were reflected in the statistical analysis.

For the compilation of statistics, the top two prosecutors’ offices with the highest number of transferred cases under each high prosecutors’ office were selected, totaling 12 offices. These included: ▲Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office and Incheon District Prosecutors’ Office (under Seoul High Prosecutors’ Office) ▲Suwon District Prosecutors’ Office and Ansan Branch (under Suwon High Prosecutors’ Office) ▲Daegu District Prosecutors’ Office and Daegu Western Branch (under Daegu High Prosecutors’ Office) ▲Busan District Prosecutors’ Office and Ulsan District Prosecutors’ Office (under Busan High Prosecutors’ Office) ▲Gwangju District Prosecutors’ Office and Jeju District Prosecutors’ Office (under Gwangju High Prosecutors’ Office), among others. For Daejeon High Prosecutors’ Office, statistics were gathered from Daejeon District Prosecutors’ Office and Cheonan Branch in March, but in April, due to the heavy workload arising from a low number of active prosecutors at the Cheonan Branch, Cheongju District Prosecutors’ Office was included in place of Cheonan Branch.

The scope of the statistics included not only regular cases referred by judicial or special judicial police officers, but also cases resent by the police after an appeal against a non-transfer decision, as well as cases in which the police reprocessed the matter upon the prosecutor’s request for reinvestigation. If multiple supplementary investigation actions were conducted within a single case, it was counted as one supplementary investigation, excluding duplicates.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.