'The One Who Flies Above the Runner'... Gang Arrested for Scamming by Threatening Bank Account Holders

Transferred money to gambling site operators, froze accounts, and embezzled 2 billion won in settlement money
Police official: "This is the first time seeing a method of extorting other criminals through bank account threats"

A bankbook with a financial crime prevention sticker attached. The photo is not related to the specific content of the article. Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Bang Je-il] A new type of fraud organization that colluded with overseas messenger phishing (telephone financial fraud) groups and swindled about 2 billion KRW from approximately 300 victims has been caught by the police.

Their method is the so-called ‘account intimidation’. Account intimidation is a criminal method where the fraudsters intentionally transfer part of the phishing proceeds to put the account into a suspension state and then demand a settlement fee to lift the suspension.

The origin of ‘account intimidation’ is phishing crime. They demand transfers from victims through phishing and steal the money sent. Up to this point, it is similar to ordinary phishing crimes. ‘Account intimidation’ goes one step further. They send the money obtained through phishing to accounts of strangers whose faces they do not even know.

The money deposited into others’ accounts is criminal proceeds. Any account containing even 1 KRW of criminal proceeds is immediately ‘frozen’. Originally, this system is for victim protection, but they exploited it as a criminal tool.

Specifically, they split the profits obtained through phishing and used a method of transferring them to black accounts such as illegal gambling site operators. The accounts of illegal gambling site operators contained hundreds of millions or even billions of KRW obtained through crime.

Methods and Procedures of New Types of Fraud Crimes. Photo by Incheon Police Agency

Illegal gambling site operators who suffered the sudden shock of having such huge sums frozen over just a few thousand won had no choice but to pay settlement fees to these criminals, crying and swallowing their pride, as they themselves were criminals and could not report to the police.

More than 350 illegal gambling sites were victimized by the illegal intimidation gang arrested this time. The total settlement fees extorted in exchange for unfreezing the frozen illegal accounts amounted to over 800 million KRW. It was revealed that the gang used most of the criminal proceeds for entertainment expenses, online gambling, and leasing luxury cars.

A representative of the Metropolitan Investigation Unit of the Incheon Police Agency said, "This is the first time we have seen a method of cheating other criminals through account intimidation." He added, "Illegal gambling site operators recognized the account intimidation crime when a small amount of money came into their managed accounts along with a Telegram ID written in English in the remitter field and agreed to a settlement. The settlement fees ranged from a minimum of 1 million KRW to a maximum of about 20 million KRW. Victims who did not know they were being used in the crime made ‘false reports’ and contacted the bank to unfreeze the suspended illegal gambling site accounts," he said.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.