A court has handed down prison terms to members of a voice phishing ring who collected cash and laundered and delivered criminal proceeds.
According to the legal community on the 26th, the 11th Criminal Division of the Seoul Northern District Court (presiding judge Choi Kyung-seo) sentenced defendant A to one year and six months in prison and defendant B to three years and six months in prison on charges including violating the Special Act on the Prevention of Loss Caused by Telecommunications-Based Financial Fraud and Refund of Loss. Defendant C, who was tried together, was sentenced to two years in prison for the voice phishing case and one year and 10 months for a separate fraud case for which he was indicted.
The defendants are accused of conspiring with unidentified members of a voice phishing ring to receive money and valuables from victims and deliver them to the organization, or to convert criminal proceeds into the cryptocurrency Tether (USDT) and hand them over. A and C served as first-tier collectors who met victims in person to receive cash and gold bars, while B served as a first- and second-tier collector and courier who took the proceeds, converted them into cryptocurrency, and delivered them to the organization.
A and the others, who sought so-called high-paying part-time jobs through online job ads, were found to have participated in the crimes under the instructions of the voice phishing ring. The organization that led the crimes impersonated prosecutors, investigators, and Financial Supervisory Service employees, deceiving victims with claims such as "your identity has been implicated in a crime," "a deposit is needed," and "you must repay existing loans to qualify for a low-interest refinancing loan," to seize cash and gold bars.
In this process, A was found to have collected about 371 million won in money and valuables from 12 victims, while B was found to have been involved in converting more than 600 million won in criminal proceeds from 17 victims into cryptocurrency and delivering it to the organization. C was found guilty of receiving more than 200 million won in cash from three victims and delivering it to the organization.
Presiding judge Choi did not accept the defendants' claim that they believed they were merely performing normal delivery work and did not know it was a voice phishing crime. Considering that they were hired without in-person interviews or employment contracts, received real-time instructions via Telegram, and exchanged large sums of cash and gold bars on the street without verifying identities or the circumstances of the transactions, the court judged that they could have sufficiently recognized the crimes. In particular, B was found to have continued the crimes even after twice receiving text messages notifying him that his account had been suspended for use in voice phishing.
"Voice phishing crimes are committed in a planned and organized manner against an unspecified number of victims," the court said. "They are extremely harmful to society in that they continuously generate damage while being difficult to detect, leaving little chance of recovering losses." The court explained its sentencing reasons, however, adding that "it considered that some defendants admitted the facts of the crime and made efforts to recover damages, and that they reached settlements with certain victims."
