2024.07.31. The Fair Economy — The National Intelligence Service announced on the 31st that it provided prosecutors and police with information on Lee (in his 30s, Chinese national) and Choi (in his 30s, South Korean national), the ringleaders of two China-based voice phishing organizations that posed as Korean government agencies or financial institutions to swindle money from citizens, leading to the successful arrest of suspects entering the country.
It was confirmed that these organizations extorted money by posing as prosecutors, the Financial Supervisory Service, banks and other institutions, threatening victims that they were implicated in crimes, or deceiving them into believing they could switch to low-interest loans.
The total damage from crimes related to the two organizations identified so far amounts to approximately 1.4 billion won.
In March of last year, the NIS succeeded in establishing the conditions needed to monitor the entire process by which these organizations selected voice phishing victims and actually collected money from them.
During the tracking process, it obtained actual video and audio recordings of organization members' fraud attempts — the so-called "voice of the scammer" — as well as crime scenarios and fake arrest warrants used to threaten victims.
According to the data secured by the National Intelligence Service, these voice phishing organizations carried out their crimes in a systematic manner comparable to the business operation methods of ordinary companies.
Members who played the counseling role entered victims' information in an organized manner using self-made "phishing forms," including ▲personal identification details, ▲workplace information such as employment period and annual salary, ▲financial information such as loan status and the year a credit card was issued, and ▲mobile phone model; phishing performance was also reflected as a factor when paying out compensation.
Given that this type of crime takes place within a short period of time, the NIS, in order to secure the golden time needed to prevent damage, established a "hotline" to immediately pass on information about voice phishing organizations' planned crimes to police as soon as it was obtained.
The NIS provided real-time information on crime locations, times, and descriptions of money collectors to the Korean National Police Agency, which then instructed local police stations to dispatch officers urgently. This prevented a total of approximately 930 million won in damage to 28 victims, including large company employees, soldiers, and job seekers, between March 2023 and June 2024.
An NIS official said, "We plan to strengthen tracking activities against voice phishing organizations operating overseas. Rather than focusing on arresting simple domestic money collectors, we will concentrate our capabilities on striking the overseas source that is leading these crimes."
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