Korea’s financial authorities said it would launch a joint investigative division on Tuesday for streamlined scrutiny of alleged stock manipulation cases.

The special unit, as a new arm of the Financial Services Commission, has been dubbed the “capital market investigation division,” the regulator said in a statement Monday.

It will be composed of 18 inspectors from the FSC, the Financial Supervisory Service, the Korea Exchange and the Ministry of Justice. They will be empowered to refer to mobile communication or Internet usage records and prohibit a suspect’s departure from the country.

Financial regulatory officials said the unit will be modeled after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority.

While the “fair market division” at the FSC had monitored the overall irregular financial transactions involving stock rigging, the “capital market investigation division” will exclusively crack down on stock rigging.

In the same vein, the FSS, an executive arm of the FSC, is set to establish the “special investigative department” for a wider scope of inquiries into unfair equity trading.

The FSS plans to hire some 40 employees with expertise in fields such as legal services, information technology and financial derivatives trading.

The FSC and FSS’ special entities will have fast-track authority under which they can immediately launch probes into alleged stock scams and hand over suspects to the prosecution.

Until now, the two state regulators have had to make inquiries into manipulation allegations for at least several months before they could file a compliant with the prosecution against suspects.

By Kim Yon-se (kys@heraldcorp.com)