[Anchor]
Voice phishing crime methods are becoming increasingly diverse.
The organization caught this time approached people who had failed to invest in stocks by deceiving themselves as the Financial Supervisory Service and said they would 'compensate for their losses.'
The victims, whose ears perked up, were dragged along as these gang members told them to do, and were robbed of a large amount of money worth around 2 billion won.
Reporter Kim Se-young reports.
[Report]
Police officers storm into an office in Gangnam, Seoul.
There are cubicle desks lined up, and the employees' work performance is written on the wall in 'bareuljeong' characters.
This is a voice phishing crime scene.
The group targeted members of a famous investment advisory firm.
They selected members who had recently suffered investment losses and approached them, pretending to be members of the 'Damage Compensation Team' who were not even affiliated with the Financial Supervisory Service.
[Han Young-jun/victim's legal representative/lawyer at Daeryun Law Firm (Limited)]
"'Currently, the Financial Supervisory Service is in progress with a loss recovery program,' and 'The more you invest, the more damage you can recover from the Financial Supervisory Service.'"
The gang lured the victims by promising that they would return a larger amount of famous virtual currency if they sent money to their account.
He then sent me a link telling me to download the cryptocurrency wallet app.
Once they confirmed that actual virtual currency had been received through the app, the victims relaxed their guard.
The gang even handed over the personal information requested, saying it was ‘necessary for currency exchange’.
But the virtual currency was fake.
The gang used the personal information they obtained to obtain loans in the victims' names and intercept them.
[Lieutenant Kim Yong-seop/Investigation Team 2, Namyangju Southern Police Station, Gyeonggi Province]
“We will compensate investment reading room subscribers with coins. What’s unusual about this approach is that they also receive damages in real coins to avoid tracking (financial authorities).”
The crime that made the victims cry twice continued for nearly a year while avoiding the authorities' pursuit, and so far there have been 72 victims and the damage amounted to 2.6 billion won.
The police confirmed that there were tens of thousands of names on the list of investors used by this group to commit the crime, and are expanding the investigation as they believe there are more victims.
The police arrested 14 members of a voice phishing organization and detained 7 people, including the leader, a woman in her 30s, and are also investigating how the list of investment advisors was leaked.
This is Seyoung Kim from MBC News.
View full article - The Financial Supervisory Service will compensate for ‘investment losses’? ‥ Stock investors who believed were robbed of 2 billion won
