우리나라 위조범죄의 특징과 대응방안

Abstract

In Korea, more than 20 thousand counterfeit crimes occur every year including counterfeiting currency, valuable security, revenue or postage stamp, official or private document, and seal. Attempted forgery rate in Korea is 43.0 cases per 100,000 persons and the statistics demonstrate Korea forgery rate that is 20.5 times higher than Japan. In 2014, 13.9% of criminal complaints and 3.9% of accusations led to criminal investigations and in terms of forgery, the percent of criminal complaint and accusation leading to investigation was 2 times higher, 38.8% and 8.6% respectively. However, during prosecution phase of criminal procedure only 25.2% was indicted on charges of forgery and 35.7% ended in acquittal. In looking at the low percentage of forgery indictments, it raises concern relevant to the efficiency within the investigative process. Although prosecutor acquittal rates are high in Korea, according to the data in 2014, the estimated number of forgery suspects indicted were 10.9 persons per 100,000 population which is 10 times higher than that of Japan(1.1 persons per 100,000 population). Most criminal courts in Korea hold trials without detention and the percentage of forgery cases ended up being prosecuted was 1.8% which did not show significant difference to the overall percentage of decision to prosecute a suspect in criminal cases (1.6%). In this study, we suggest the following six countermeasures to take guard against forgery: 1. Encouraging education on forgery-prevention 2. Research on anti-forgery features 3. Stronger punishment for forgery 4. Developing document examination techniques 5. Profiling of professional counterfeiters and counterfeit techniques 6. Collaboration among investigative agencies - identification institutions