Illegal Driving School Caught After Luring Students With 'Half-Price Fees' and Pocketing Over 700 Million Won

[Financial News] A company that ran illegal driver training programs and pocketed hundreds of millions of won after luring trainees with "half-price" lesson fees has been caught by police.
According to police on the 13th, Seongbuk Police Station arrested four operators of an unregistered driver training company and three affiliated driving instructors on charges of violating the Road Traffic Act and the Electronic Financial Transactions Act.
They are suspected of conducting illegal driver training for about 3,200 students nationwide from November 2024 to January this year, a period of roughly one year and three months, and earning about 780 million won in the process.
The investigation found that company officials operated a website to promote themselves as a legitimate business, posting a fake business registration number and a false representative name. They also recruited trainees by advertising lesson fees at roughly half the price of other driving schools.
The group assigned driving instructors who did not hold a practical driving instructor license, and the vehicles used for training were found to lack emergency braking systems and other safety devices. Police also said it was unclear whether the trainees were covered by insurance.
Police launched an investigation based on a civil complaint that illegal driver training was being offered. By analyzing the flow of funds and call records linked to the bank accounts where trainees deposited their tuition fees, investigators identified the scale of the operation and the office location, then executed search and seizure warrants to arrest those involved.
In the course of the investigation, police seized 137 bank accounts opened under borrowed names and eight mobile phones. The group is believed to have used a large number of such accounts to manage their profits and evade tracking by investigative authorities.
A police official said, "Illegal driver training businesses increase both the risk of traffic accidents and the likelihood of financial damage," and urged the public to exercise caution.
jyseo@fnnews.com Seo Ji-yoon Reporter