1. Purposes

KRW 30.73 trillion is said to be the estimated total value of property lost in property crimes in 2016. Unidentified illegal proceeds of crime, however, may well far exceed such figure or our imagination when we aggregate to it the property losses of unreported property crimes and other proceeds from corruption, tax evasion, illegal gambling, prostitution, illegal entertainment business, controled substances, insider trading/market rigging, etc. that give bigger proceeds than property crimes. This and other problems that we are confronted have brought the issue of recovering the proceeds of crime thoroughly to the fore in the political discussion, and so the new government has set as its top policy goal ‘the complete removal of deep-rooted vice.’ The institution for recovering the proceeds of crime is not functioning properly, which requires reform to enhance its effectiveness, due mainly to the fact that : (1) there is no provision on shifting burden of proof from prosecution to defense, (2) it is not clear how and under what procedure to revert and distribute the recovered assets, (3) it is difficult to confiscate illegal assets that belong to a corporate body, and (4) only limited power is invested in financial investigators with regard to tracking proceeds of crime.
Therefore, we, the co-researchers, set it as our goal to illuminate the financial tracking investigations and the recovery of proceeds of crime being done in countries that have suggestive aspects to our own system so that the readers may realize on their onw how our system is falling behind captured in an ‘ancient frame.’ we expect that the readers may well become aware that our society still has a very limited outlook in the arena of injustice and corruption, if nothing else.

2. Research into and Analysis of foreign financial investigations

The study researches into and analyses the practice of financial investigations operated in USA, UK, Germany, Japan and China. To give the readers a bigger picture of what is happening as well as the idiosyncratic aspects of each country, we first analyse the general legal institutions for financial tracking and proceeds of crime and then we gave specificity to each country: in the case of US, United States v. Miller, which denied reasonable expectation of privacy with regard to information of financial transaction, and details of Civil Forfeiture are described.
In the case of UK, one of the rare countries that allows nearly unlimited information sharing in terms of financial intelligence, various law enforcement agencies involved in financial investigations, intelligence sharing of Suspecious Activities Reports, and methods of recovering proceeds of crime with recent developments are described. In the case of Germany, account information power and financial transaction tracking process are enhanced. In the case of Japan, the Transfer of Proceeds of Crime Act is on the focus. In the case of China, a country that needs and is needed for international cooperation but whose system is not even properly known, the criminal procedure itself is also described.
Unlike many other studies about foreign legal institutions, we did not apply the comparative analysis method. Also, we need to mention that our research is based only or mostly upon laws, literature, and other materials that were issued in the target country so as to grasp wholly the system of the target country.

3. Reform Proposal for Korean financial investigation

Based on the above full-fledged research and analysis, this study suggests 7-pronged principle of reform for Korean financial transactions: (1) Watch the windows of financial institutions, (2) Disturb reliability and solidarity of accomplices, (3) Capture the time of transfer, (4) Expand the outer boundary of financial control, (5) Make as few exceptions as possible, (6) Share information collected with investigation agencies at home and abroad, (7) Record and keep as long as possible crime related financial transactions.
For specific reform proposal, this study suggests that: (1) we should abolish the Act on Reporting and Using Specified Financial Transaction information, (2) we should establish a special committee to enact the Proceeds of Crime Act(proposed), and (3) we should consider to establish and entity that is responsible for asset recovery and financial investigation.
We expect that we may weed out the long lasting illegalities if and when the social consensus is formed that the proceeds obtained from crime do not belong to the criminals, but to the victims and to the members of this community, and that any such proceeds, whether tangible or intangible, should be deprived and returned to society.