Arrest warrants sought for 72 of 73 suspects repatriated from Cambodia; 1 already in custody

The Financial News reported that police and prosecutors have asked the court to allow them to continue investigating 72 of the 73 Korean crime ring members, repatriated after committing large-scale scams and crimes such as hostage robberies based in the Kingdom of Cambodia, while they remain in custody.
The National Office of Investigation stated on the 25th, "Arrest warrants were requested for 72 of the 73 people for whom arrest warrants had been applied, and prosecutors decided not to seek a warrant for one person."
Police had applied for an arrest warrant for that suspect on charges of a small-scale face-to-face transaction scam. However, it is understood that prosecutors returned the case at the review stage, judging the offense to be minor.
Police have nonetheless executed a new arrest warrant for the same suspect on separate small-scale fraud charges and are continuing their investigation.
One member of the organization, who allegedly posed as global financial firms such as "Janus Henderson" at a call center office in the Kingdom of Cambodia and defrauded about 19.4 billion won from more than 200 victims by last July, has already had an arrest warrant issued. The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency Criminal Investigation Mobile Unit has taken him into custody and is questioning him.
The remaining 71 suspects are scheduled to undergo pretrial detention hearings (warrant reviews). Of these, 54 people, including 49 members of the so-called "no-show scam" ring who were transferred to the Anti-Corruption and Economic Crime Investigation Unit of the Busan Metropolitan Police Agency, will have their warrant reviews on the afternoon of the 25th. Seventeen others, under investigation by the Criminal Mobile Unit of the Chungnam Provincial Police Agency on charges of swindling about 5 billion won from some 30 romance scam victims, are scheduled for warrant reviews on the afternoon of the 26th.
Earlier, on the 23rd, the Pan-Government Special Response Task Force on Transnational Crimes forcibly repatriated a total of 73 members of a crime ring that had used the Kingdom of Cambodia as its base and allegedly stole about 48.6 billion won from 869 Koreans. The following day, on the 24th, arrest warrants were applied for all of them.

psh@fnnews.com Park Sung-hyun Reporter