Call Center That Stole 600 Million Won by Claiming "Your Account is Involved"... Relocated After Cambodia Crackdown

[Anchor]

Voice phishing and other scam rings operating mainly in Southeast Asia have expanded their operational range to Central Asia. Avoiding crackdowns through Cambodia and Vietnam, a ring of 19 South Koreans who recently used Kazakhstan as their base has been arrested.

Reporter Lee Se-hyeon has the details.

[Reporter]

Police check the cell phones of men standing with their hands behind their backs.

[That's mine.]

Men standing facing the wall get into vehicles one after another.

These are ring members who committed scam crimes, including voice phishing and text message financial fraud, in Kazakhstan.

After setting up a call center in Almaty, Kazakhstan, they posed as government agencies such as the Financial Supervisory Service, prosecutors, and courts, swindling 600 million won from 16 victims, according to the investigation.

They used methods such as approaching victims under the pretext of receiving registered mail from the Supreme Court and deceiving them into transferring money themselves by claiming their accounts were involved in a crime.

The Transnational Crime Special Response Task Force arrested 14 ring members in Almaty on June 23 and repatriated all of them, while also capturing five members who were in South Korea.

All 19 are South Korean nationals.

Investigations showed that they originally operated with Cambodia as their base, but as local crackdowns intensified, they moved through Vietnam and relocated their base to Kazakhstan starting in April of this year to commit their crimes.

[Kim Byung-joo / Head of International Cooperation Division 1, Korean National Police Agency: Even if criminal organizations hide in remote and unfamiliar regions halfway across the globe, we will track them down to the very end, bring them to justice, and protect the safety of our citizens.]

Police have already detained 14 of the 19 suspects and plan to apply the principle of requesting arrest warrants for the remaining five as well.

They are also pursuing several other ring members who have fled to other countries such as Southeast Asia, including a Chinese national mastermind and two managers currently located in China.

(Video Editing: So Ji-hye, Design: Park Tae-young, Footage provided by: Korean National Police Agency)

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