The Joint Government Investigation Unit on Voice Phishing Crime at the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors' Office, which will be disbanded on the 2nd under the revised Criminal Procedure Act, announced the results of roughly four years of work. Voice phishing damages, which swelled to a record high last year, fell 43% from a year earlier after the government stepped up its response in October of last year.
The unit booked a total of 1,381 people and indicted and detained 526 of them since its launch in July 2022, targeting organized remote fraud including voice phishing, smishing, romance scams and investment-coaching schemes, according to the Joint Investigation Division on Voice Phishing Crime at the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors' Office on the 1st. It also recovered about 36 billion won ($25 million) in criminal proceeds.
The unit was launched with about 50 specialists from the prosecution service and police as well as the National Tax Service, the Korea Customs Service, the Financial Supervisory Service and the Korea Immigration Service. In January this year, it was converted into a formal organizational unit, the Joint Investigation Division on Voice Phishing Crime.
Voice phishing damages fell from 774.4 billion won in 2021, before the unit was created, to 543.8 billion won in 2022 and 447.2 billion won in 2023. They then rose again to 854.5 billion won in 2024 as criminal methods grew more sophisticated, and hit a record 1.2578 trillion won last year.
From October last year, when a pan-government task force stepped up its response, through July this year, however, damages totaled 632.4 billion won, down 43% from the same period a year earlier. The number of cases also fell 40% to 12,554 over the same period.
Investigations into groups based overseas also continued. Through passport invalidation, extradition and international cooperation, the unit forcibly repatriated 67 members, including 34 ringleaders who had been staying abroad, and indicted and detained them. In Cambodia, it uncovered a corporate-style criminal organization with roles divided among sextortion, romance scams and stock schemes, booking 48 people and indicting and detaining 23.
A large-scale money laundering ring was also uncovered. Investigators found that from 2022 the group converted seven apartments in the greater Seoul area into round-the-clock laundering sites and used about 180 accounts opened under other people's names to launder 1.5 trillion won ($1 billion), including proceeds from voice phishing. The unit booked 22 members, indicted and detained 13, and secured 3.4 billion won in criminal proceeds, including luxury goods and assets belonging to the ringleader's family.
The unit also pushed for regulatory changes based on the criminal structures it identified. Mobile phone subscription limits, which had been applied separately by each carrier, were consolidated and cut from as many as 150 lines per person to three, and the unit took part in introducing an emergency blocking system that suspends incoming and outgoing calls on phone numbers used in voice phishing for seven days. A total of 115,088 phone numbers have been blocked under the system to date.
"Even after the shift to the prosecution office, we will solidify the cooperation we have built with related agencies and make use of our expertise and know-how," prosecutors said. "We will do our utmost to ensure there is no gap in the pan-government response to voice phishing crime."
