Recruiting instructors through Karrot Market, with 40% of lesson fees going to commissions ... Suspicious driving lessons [True Crime]

[Financial News] On March 26, 2024, in the area around Namyangju, Gyeonggi Province, Kim took driving lessons in a passenger car of their own. The instructor was A. After the lessons, Kim transferred the 290,000 won fee to an account in A’s name.
But the people connecting students and instructors were not a formally registered driving school. They were an unregistered road-driving lesson operation that recruited instructors and students through daily newspapers and platforms such as Karrot Market, connected them via Telegram, and conducted lessons.
Operator B and others recruited driving instructors through advertisements and students seeking road-driving lessons. Once they had found students, intermediary C passed their information on to instructors via Telegram.
After completing lessons for students referred to them, instructors collected the fees. They then paid about 40% of the fees to C as a commission, and C passed the money on to B and others. In effect, the recruitment of students, instruction, and distribution of commissions were divided among them.
A also agreed to teach students referred through this arrangement. Kim, whom A met in Namyangju, was likewise a student whom C had connected with A via Telegram.
According to legal sources on the 19th, the Seoul Western District Court’s Fifth Criminal Division (single judge, Judge Kim Hyeong-seok) sentenced A to a fine of 1 million won on July 9 for violating the Road Traffic Act.
A was brought to trial on charges of conspiring with B and others to teach students to drive for payment without registering as a driving school.
The Road Traffic Act prohibits people who are not registered as driving schools from providing car-driving instruction outside a school in exchange for payment. Prosecutors at the time determined that A’s arrangement—accepting student referrals and providing paid road-driving lessons without formal registration—fell under this prohibition.
The court found A guilty of providing paid driving instruction without registration, based on A’s testimony in court, police interrogation records, financial records, and other evidence.
Taking into account the circumstances and duration of the offense and consistency in sentencing with the other accomplices, the court imposed the same fine of 1 million won as the one set in the summary order.
[email protected] Choi Seung-han Reporter