According to statistics announced by the National Police Agency on Friday, foreigners committed 9,103 crimes last year, an increase of a massive 48.2 percent from the 6,144 crimes committed the previous year. Crimes by foreigners have doubled in two years from the 5,221 crimes committed in 2002. The biggest increase was in nonviolent crimes such as fraud and document forgery, more than doubling from 834 incidents in 2003 to 1,965 in 2004. But murders also nearly doubled from 32 to 60, and drug offenses grew from 120 to 218 - increases of 87 and 82 percent.

The sudden jump is being attributed to a growth in the number of illegal immigrants. The blind spot in police control appears to be getting larger. In late 2002, there were about 289,000 illegal foreign residents in Korea, but following measures to legalize some of them in the fall of 2003, the number dropped to about 138,000. Despite a plan to reduce them to fewer than 100,000, however, their number rose again last year, reaching 188,000 by the end of the year, an increase of 50,000.

A police official indicated more immigration police was needed. "The number of illegal foreigners who are forging documents or contracting fake marriages in order to stay in Korea is increasing, but since the number of police specializing in crimes by foreigners has been frozen for several years, there are limits to our ability to crack down," he said.

But rising anti-Americanism in Korea in the wake of the Iraq War as well as a special law against prostitution has meant that crimes committed by U.S. soldiers in Korea greatly decreased. Prosecutions for crimes like grand larceny and burglary involving U.S. soldiers, the families of U.S. soldiers and U.S. military civilians went down from 83 in 2003 to 59 last year. Special crimes like traffic offenses and sexual assaults also decreased from 98 in 2003 to 57 in 2004.

That drop is likely due to more stringent USFK force protection in response to rising terror threats after last year's deployment of men from the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division to Iraq. Another reason is better crime prevention education for U.S. forces in response to growing anti-American feelings in the wake of a June 2002 accident in which two middle school girls were crushed to death by a USFK armored vehicle.

(englishnews@chosun.com )