Recently, Trial Panel No. 31 of the Seoul Central Court (South Korea) presided over by Judge Park Joon Seok sentenced a Chinese citizen, identified as A, to 20 years in prison for crimes including fraud under the Law on Extending Penalties for Special Economic Crimes and violating the Law on Information and Communication Networks.
The court determined that A was the mastermind based on many evidences, including the use of WeChat accounts with similar names linked to this person and matching phone numbers appearing in conversations.
In addition, A's storage of information about the selected targets on an external hard drive and the content exchanged with accomplices are also considered grounds for making a verdict.
The court stated: "The subjects sought wealthy people as targets to appropriate property", and pointed out: "Unlike ordinary phone scams, victims in this case were appropriated property when they were completely unable to defend themselves and had no fault.
The court continued to assess this as "a serious crime, shaking the foundation not only of personal property but also of the financial system". When deciding on the penalty, the court considered the total amount of damage up to tens of billions of won and the fact that the victims have not yet fully recovered the consequences.
The court said that according to the penalty framework, this case may be sentenced to the highest level of life imprisonment. However, after considering that A admitted the basic details of the case and did not directly enjoy the entire amount of money collected from the crime, the court decided to sentence him to 20 years in prison.
On the other hand, A testified that there is another person who is the real leader behind directing him, but the identity and existence of this person have not been verified. Therefore, the court believes that it is difficult to assess whether A is truly repentant, this is also considered a disadvantageous circumstance for A.
A is accused of establishing a cybercrime organization abroad, including Thailand. From August 2023 to January last year, this person was accused of illegally collecting personal information of victims, arbitrarily registering cheap mobile subscriptions under their names, then using this trick to access bank accounts and virtual asset accounts, appropriating about 38 billion won.
The targets of the ring included singer Jungkook (BTS) and wealthy people such as chairmen of large corporations. The investigation results showed that 8 chairmen, representatives and directors of businesses, 1 senior leader, 3 influential artists/people and 3 virtual asset investors became targets.
Notably, during his military service, Jungkook's identity was stolen, leading to the appropriation of about 8.4 billion won of his HYBE shares. However, immediately after discovering the incident, the management company took measures such as temporarily suspending payment/transaction, so the incident was not considered to lead to actual financial damage.
South Korean police in coordination with Interpol arrested A in Thailand in May last year. Then, in August of the same year, A was brought back to South Korea thanks to the coordination between the Ministry of Justice and the Korean National Police Agency, before being prosecuted and detained in September.
