From fake prostitution ring to nonexistent robber, prank calls hamper police

South Korea has been seeking to curb an increasing number of false emergency reports that hinder police duties, with a law revision for stricter measures set to take effect in July.

The recently revised law on 112 emergency call services passed last year will kick in on July 3, allowing the court to hand out an administrative fine of up to 5 million won ($3,600) for false reports to the police, even to first-time offenders.

Prank calls to the police had previously been dealt with mostly under the Punishment of Minor Offense Act, with the punishment being a fine of up to 600,000 won or up to 29 days in a local detention center. While the crime could potentially face harsher punishment as obstruction of public duties, such cases are rare and most cases are punished by what was widely deemed as a mere slap on the wrist.

South Korea has been seeing an increase in punishment for false police reports in recent years, from 3,757 in 2021, 3,946 in 2022 to 4,871 in 2023.

A few prank call cases reported by local media outlets in the past month attested to the problems faced by local law enforcement officials.

On Wednesday, a division of Daejeon District Court in Dangjin, South Chungcheong Province, ordered a man in a summary trial to pay a 200,000 won ($145) fine for an April Fool's Day prank that involved falsely reporting a prostitution ring supposedly ran at a cafe. Police warned the man, who was drunk at the time, that prank calls could be punished but he ended up calling them 51 more times to tell the same lie.

The National Police Agency had issued a formal warning against prank calls on the global celebration day of practical jokes, saying there will be no leniency on hoaxes that see police officials dispatched. Despite the stern warning, a habitual prank caller was caught by local police on the April Fool's Day this year.

According to Jungwon Police Station in Gyeonggi Province on April 1, a man in his 50s was charged with minor offenses for prank calling from a karaoke bar in Jungwon-gu, Seongnam, earlier that day. Police found that he had prank-called the police over 400 times in the past year.

On April 17, a man in his 60s called local police to have them search for his supposed "younger female friend." Police, who found the woman just two hours later, also discovered that the woman was the man's girlfriend.

Police pressed minor offenses charges against the man and requested a summary trial to the court.

While most cases of prank calls just end up with a minor offense charge, with small fines and a few days in the detention center at most, some cases result in the perpetrator facing serious consequences.

The Changwon District Court on Wednesday said it sentenced a 33-year-old woman to six months in prison, suspended for two years, for telling her boyfriend to call the police while pretending to be robbed in September last year. Her actions resulted in a particularly harsh punishment, as it was deemed as an act of obstruction of the performance of public duties.

This was because the woman lied to police officers who arrived on the scene, prompting them to search for the nonexistent robber, which the court said caused "a considerable obstruction of police duties."

After confessing to having lied, the defendant told the police that she did so because she "wasn't happy about her boyfriend's nonchalant reaction over her walking alone at night."