The prosecution on Friday vowed to crack down on the spread of fake news involving the May 9 presidential election.

Prosecutor-General Kim Soo-nam presided over a meeting with senior prosecutors to discuss ways to curb malicious disinformation activities which are likely to increase ahead of the 19th presidential election, the Supreme Prosecutors' Office said.

"There is a high risk of fake news spreading during this presidential election as the time to verify the candidates is absolutely limited," it said in a press release.

The election, originally scheduled for December, was moved up after the Constitutional Court removed Park Geun-hye from the presidential office last week.

"We will trace IP addresses and seek information from social media service providers to arrest those who create and systematically spread false information," the prosecution's office said.

"Fake news cause conflict in our society and could distort the voting intentions," the top prosecutor said during the meeting.

A total of 27 suspects have been arrested so far in relation to the upcoming presidential election. The number is down 55 percent from the 60 tallied in the same period during the previous presidential race.

Still, the number of those arrested for false propaganda was 19, 70 percent of the total number. It outnumbers 12 reported five years ago. (Yonhap)