67 Gang Members Repatriated from Cambodia; 1.4 Billion Won in Criminal Proceeds Frozen and Preserved

\r\n
According to Financial News, police have taken pre-indictment seizure and preservation measures against the criminal proceeds of 67 gang members who were involved in scams and hostage robberies in Cambodia and were subsequently repatriated to Korea.
According to police and other authorities on the 11th, the National Office of Investigation under the Korean National Police Agency (KNPA) identified the criminal proceeds of 67 offenders repatriated from Cambodia on the 23rd of last month and applied for pre-indictment seizure and preservation of a total of 1,477,200,000 won. This measure covers all but six of the 73 people repatriated, excluding those involved in cases handled by the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency (SMPA) phishing investigation unit (hostage robbery) and the Changwon Jungbu Police Station (simple fraud), which are not subject to pre-indictment seizure and preservation.
To identify the offenders’ assets and thoroughly trace and preserve their criminal proceeds, police deployed seven city and provincial crime proceeds investigation teams, comprising 29 investigators. They also requested and received 193 sets of data related to the offenders’ assets from relevant agencies, including the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, and the National Tax Service. In addition, they executed warrants on financial institutions and secured and analyzed transaction records for 562 bank accounts.
However, investigators found that most of those repatriated had received their criminal proceeds in cash locally and spent them on living expenses, leaving them with relatively few assets in Korea. As a result, the amount actually frozen and preserved before indictment came to 248,300,000 won. Even so, police also preserved 1,228,900,000 won in future deposit claims—amounts expected to be deposited into accounts held in the offenders’ names—so that anticipated future criminal proceeds would also be subject to recovery.
In particular, the Anti-Corruption Investigation Unit of the Busan Metropolitan Police Agency analyzed 484 accounts at 28 financial institutions and checked the offenders’ virtual assets and real estate holdings. Based on this, it applied to preserve 574,600,000 won, including real estate, vehicles, and future deposit claims. The SMPA Criminal Investigation Mobile Unit also tracked down two additional accomplices who belonged to the same criminal organization as the repatriated offenders and had acted as cash mules in Korea. Separate from the existing preserved amount, the unit secured an additional 7,370,000 won for preservation, including future deposit claims.
Police believe that most of the repatriated offenders were low-level members, such as managers or team members, who were paid basic salaries, and therefore personally obtained relatively small amounts of criminal proceeds. Accordingly, they plan to focus on closely tracing and preserving criminal proceeds when ringleaders and higher-level organizers are arrested and repatriated in the future, with the aim of continuously prioritizing victim restitution.
Park Seong-ju, head of the National Office of Investigation, stated, "As the President of South Korea has stressed that overseas scam operations targeting Korean citizens must be completely eradicated, we will continue to respond firmly, with the Special Task Force on Transnational Crimes at the center of a whole-of-government effort." He emphasized, "We will ensure that no one can ever profit from fraud crimes such as voice phishing and romance scams. We will use every possible means to track down and strip offenders of any assets obtained through criminal activity, down to the very end."
Meanwhile, the Special Task Force on Transnational Crimes held a meeting on the recovery of criminal proceeds the previous day, with participation from the KNPA, the Ministry of Justice, the Financial Services Commission (FSC), the Supreme Prosecutors' Office of the Republic of Korea (SPO), the National Tax Service, the Korea Customs Service (KCS), and the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS). At the meeting, participants agreed on the need for inter-agency cooperation to fundamentally remove the economic incentives for crime and to achieve meaningful victim restitution. They also shared each institution’s plans and cooperation measures for recovering criminal proceeds from transnational crimes, and committed to strengthening their collaborative framework.
welcome@fnnews.com Jang Yu-ha Reporter