Voice Phishing Joint Investigation Team Books 1,381 Suspects, Detains 526 Over Four Years; Recovers KRW 36 Billion

[Financial News] The Government-wide Joint Investigation Team on Voice Phishing Crimes has booked 1,381 people as suspects in organized non-face-to-face fraud cases, including voice phishing, during the approximately four years since its launch. Of these, 526 were detained and indicted. The team also recovered approximately KRW 36 billion in criminal proceeds and forcibly repatriated 67 people, including overseas ringleaders, to South Korea.
According to the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors' Office on the 1st, the Government-wide Joint Investigation Team on Voice Phishing Crimes has investigated organized non-face-to-face fraud, including voice phishing, smishing, body-cam phishing, romance scams, investment chatroom scams, and no-show scams, since its launch in July 2022. It booked a total of 1,381 people as suspects and detained and indicted 526. It also took steps to recover approximately KRW 36 billion in criminal proceeds.
The team was launched in July 2022 with about 50 government-wide experts from the prosecution, police, National Tax Service, Korea Customs Service, Financial Supervisory Service, and Korea Immigration Service. In January this year, it was formally established as the Joint Investigation Division on Voice Phishing Crimes within the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors' Office.
As voice phishing crimes became more sophisticated, organized, and internationalized, the scale of the damage also grew. Annual losses rose from KRW 447.2 billion in 2023 to KRW 854.5 billion in 2024, before reaching a record KRW 1.2578 trillion last year.
However, losses have begun to decline since October last year. From October last year through July this year, losses totaled KRW 632.4 billion, down 43% from the same period a year earlier. The number of incidents also fell 40% to 12,554 during the same period. Prosecutors believe the implementation of the government's Comprehensive Measures to Eliminate Voice Phishing and its focused response contributed to the decline.
The team has investigated each stage of the crime, from overseas-based criminal organizations to domestic groups distributing relay devices, burner accounts, and burner SIM cards, as well as money-laundering organizations. 
In particular, it used passport invalidation, efforts to prevent the extension of residency permits, extradition requests, and international cooperation with local investigative authorities to forcibly repatriate 67 overseas-based members to South Korea, including 34 ringleaders. All were detained and indicted.
In the Kingdom of Cambodia, the team uncovered a corporate-style criminal organization divided into body-cam phishing, romance scam, stock, and money-transfer teams. It booked 48 members as suspects and detained and indicted 23. It also detained 17 local members of a Cambodian no-show scam organization that impersonated hospitals and military units to defraud 215 small-business owners of approximately KRW 3.8 billion. All 17 were repatriated to South Korea, and a total of 23 people were detained and indicted.
In South Korea, the team uncovered an organization that had converted seven apartments in the greater Seoul area into 24-hour money-laundering centers and used approximately 180 burner accounts to launder KRW 1.5 trillion, including voice phishing proceeds. The case resulted in 22 people being booked as suspects and 13 being detained and indicted. The team also secured luxury goods, property, and other criminal proceeds worth approximately KRW 3.4 billion held by the ringleader's family.
Alongside efforts to cut off criminal infrastructure, the team also pursued institutional reforms. It uncovered caller ID spoofing relay stations operated by a multinational organization and seized 1,694 relay devices, 8,083 SIM cards, and 443 mobile phones. It also uncovered an organization involving organized crime members that sold 72,500 virtual accounts to voice phishing and illegal gambling groups and managed approximately KRW 590 billion in illicit funds for them.
To prevent the spread of burner SIM cards, the government changed the system to reduce the maximum number of lines that one person could open from 150 to a combined maximum of three lines across all telecommunications carriers. The team also helped introduce an emergency-blocking system that suspends incoming and outgoing calls from phone numbers used in voice phishing for seven days. So far, approximately 115,088 phone numbers have been blocked under the system.
Meanwhile, prosecutors plan to continue the government-wide response to voice phishing even after the transition to the Prosecution Office on the 2nd, using the interagency cooperation system and investigative experience built through the joint investigation process.
[email protected] Lee Dong-hyeok Reporter