200 million won handed over after being duped by a 'fake prosecutor'—courier in his 60s converted it into department-store gift certificates and passed them on [Scammers]

[Financial News] A voice-phishing ring based in China and elsewhere that repeatedly targeted South Koreans called a victim identified by the surname Lim on Aug. 27 last year. Posing as an employee of the Financial Supervisory Service and a prosecutor, the ring falsely told Lim, "Your identity has been stolen and used in a crime. You need to protect your assets, so withdraw all the money you have in checks and hand them to an agent."
Deceived by the ring, Lim handed two checks worth 100 million won each to its cash-collection agent outside a subway station in Gwangmyeong, Gyeonggi Province, on Aug. 28 of the same year.
The following day, Kim, 60, received the checks from a cash-collection agent near a subway station in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. Kim deposited them into a personal account, purchased 200 million won worth of department-store gift certificates and handed them to a member of the ring.
According to legal sources on the 27th, Criminal Division 11 of the Seoul Southern District Court, a single-judge panel presided over by Judge Lee A-young, sentenced Kim to 18 months in prison for violating the Special Act on the Prevention of Damage from Telecommunications-Based Financial Fraud and Refund of Damages.
The court noted, "Fraud committed through telecommunications is a crime carried out systematically and in an organized manner against an unspecified number of victims. Its social harm is extremely serious because it is difficult to detect and the prospects for recovering damages are slim."
The court also explained, "Purchasing and delivering gift certificates is an essential role in ultimately completing the crime. The defendant's level of involvement was not minor, and he obtained a substantial payment. No restitution has been made."
However, the court took into account that Kim had no prior criminal record and admitted the facts of the crime. It also considered fairness in light of three separate cases involving similar offenses, in which Kim had been sentenced to two years and six months, three years and five years in prison and had appealed.
It started with a real-estate site-inspection gig introduced through a job website.
In mid-June last year, Kim was offered real-estate site-inspection work by a person called "Team Leader Choi" at a company through a job website. Kim worked for 40,000 won per job. Later, "Representative Woo," whom Kim met through Team Leader Choi, offered him "gift-certificate work."
Kim's job was to receive checks from people whose identities he did not know, deposit them into an account opened under a business registration, purchase department-store gift certificates with a card linked to the account and deliver them to a third party. In fact, at Representative Woo's direction, Kim opened a real-estate consulting company in his own name.
Representative Woo designated the locations where Kim would receive the checks and deliver the gift certificates. Each time Kim deposited a check, he took a photograph of the deposit record and sent it to Representative Woo. His fee was 0.3% of the value of the gift certificates purchased.
On Aug. 26 last year, one day before calling Lim, the ring also contacted another victim, identified by the surname Kang. Posing as a card-company employee and a prosecutor, the ring deceived Kang in the same way by invoking identity theft and asset protection.
On Aug. 28 of the same year, Kang handed a 50 million-won check to a cash-collection agent near a church in Iksan, North Jeolla Province. That day, Kim received the check from a courier known as "Manager Kim" outside a subway station in Seocho-gu, Seoul. Kim immediately exchanged it for 50 million won worth of department-store gift certificates and provided them to a member of the ring.
In court, Kim admitted that he had received checks, converted them into gift certificates and delivered them. However, he argued that he was unaware it was a voice-phishing crime and had never conspired with the members of the ring, so he could not be punished as a joint principal offender.
The court rejected this argument based on the circumstances in which Kim took on the work and the way the checks and gift certificates were delivered.
Kim did not undergo a separate interview or sign an employment contract during the hiring process. He did not verify the identities of Team Leader Choi or Representative Woo, the company's address or telephone number, or even whether the company existed. The court ruled that this process was "abnormal or unusual in itself."
The court described the "gift-certificate work" as "a typical method used to avoid tracing funds obtained through crime." The court's point was that anyone with ordinary common sense could have recognized the possibility that the activity was connected to voice phishing.
During the crimes, Kim experienced several freezes on withdrawals from his cards or accounts, but he informed Representative Woo and continued. When he received the 50 million-won check on Aug. 28 last year, he also told Representative Woo, "I have a bad feeling about the bank I visited today." The court cited the remark as an indication that Kim was aware of the illegality of the gift-certificate work.
The court took note of the fact that Kim received higher pay for simply collecting checks and converting them into gift certificates than he had received for his previous site-inspection work. It also found that Kim could have sufficiently recognized that there was no connection between real-estate consulting and the gift-certificate work.
Taking into account that Kim was in his 60s and had worked for more than 10 years at a regular company before the crime, the court concluded that he had at least conditional intent to participate in voice phishing. It therefore recognized Kim as a joint principal offender in the case.
[email protected] Park Seong-hyun Reporter