"I'm in My 20s and Single, Looking for Friends" ... Group Arrested for Swindling Hundreds of Millions of Won Using Paid-Dating Bait

Materials related to criminal schemes using fake paid dating offers as bait. [Courtesy of the Gyeongnam Provincial Police Agency]

Police have arrested a group that operated a scam from Vietnam, using fake “paid dating” offers on social media as bait to defraud victims of hundreds of millions of won.

The Gyeongnam Provincial Police Agency’s Violent Crime Investigation Unit said Tuesday that it had arrested 15 people, including a man in his 30s identified as A, the alleged ringleader of a criminal group involved in so-called romance scams. Seven of them have been detained.

According to police, A and the others are accused of posting fake paid-dating ads on social media from May 2024 to March 2025 and defrauding 34 men who contacted them after seeing the ads of 2.6 billion won under the pretext of membership fees, verification fees, and server restoration costs. They are all reportedly South Korean nationals.

Investigators found that the group set up accommodation in an officetel in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and rented an office nearby with restricted access for outsiders to carry out the crimes.

The group operated under A, who oversaw recruitment and the crimes. It included an advertising team that posted fake paid-dating ads, a deception team that impersonated women seeking paid dates and verification staff, and a website development team that built and maintained fake paid-dating sites.

Posing as women seeking paid dates or verification staff, the group deceived men and persuaded them to sign up for fake paid-dating sites. They then demanded membership verification fees and, in some cases, told men who had signed up that there was a problem with the site’s server and demanded server restoration costs.

Overview of crimes committed by a fake dating scam ring. [Image provided by South Gyeongsang Provincial Police Agency]

Police began investigating after discovering, while probing a separate investment fraud case, that a group specializing in creating fake websites had built paid-dating sites for a criminal group in Vietnam.

They tracked down ringleader A, who was staying in Vietnam, identified his hideout, and arrested him there through international cooperation. He was then extradited to South Korea and detained.

Police also obtained a court order to preserve 530 million won in alleged criminal proceeds belonging to A for confiscation before indictment and notified the National Tax Service so the amount could be used for tax assessment purposes.

Police subsequently arrested five members of the advertising team, seven from the deception team, and two from the website development team.

Police obtained arrest warrants for six members of the deception team who fled to Vietnam and issued red notices for them. They also invalidated their passports and denied applications for replacements. Police plan to track down their whereabouts through international cooperation.

A police official said, “Non-face-to-face fraud schemes such as romance scams have recently become increasingly sophisticated. People should be especially careful not to be taken in by these criminal groups’ tactics, such as directing them to unverified websites or links, or luring them overseas with promises of high-paying part-time jobs or employment.”

The official added, “We will do our utmost, through active tracking and international cooperation, to arrest even the ringleaders of organized fraud groups that threaten people’s daily lives and property.”

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