This footage captures money laundering syndicate members paying commissions to the holders of burner accounts and recording their personal information.
[Syndicate Member: May I have your name, please? Could you provide your resident registration number? What is your mobile phone number? Do you agree to having received 17 million won?]
Using the recorded videos as leverage, they threatened the account holders to prevent them from reporting to the police.
The money laundering syndicate apprehended by the police secured burner accounts by recruiting people through acquaintances, senior and junior connections, and social media for so-called transfer part-time jobs offering commissions, or by utilizing shell company corporations.
[Lee Sung-ki / Chief of the 2nd Metropolitan Investigation Division, Ulsan Provincial Police Agency: Burner accounts have recently become subject to stricter regulations, making them difficult to acquire. Therefore, they connect through internet advertisements and the like to evade tracking in the first place, while also securing a smooth supply of burner accounts.]
They set up offices such as officetels and even operated a so-called CS team to launder illegal funds requested by illegal gambling site operators and others.
They evaded police tracking by receiving money through burner accounts and immediately transferring it to other accounts.
Through this method, from May 2024 to August of this year, they used approximately 260 burner accounts to launder 270 billion won worth of illegal funds.
They pocketed 0.4% to 1% of the laundered amount as commissions, and their criminal proceeds are estimated to be in the range of 1 billion won.
The Metropolitan Investigation Division of the Ulsan Provincial Police Agency transferred 49 individuals, including a syndicate leader in his 30s surnamed A, to prosecutors under detention, and sent 108 providers of burner accounts without detention.
The police plan to identify individuals who fled overseas in connection with the money laundering and continue their pursuit and apprehension.
(Photo: Yonhap News)
Reported by Park Jae-kwon (UBC) | Video by Cho Hyun-woo (UBC) | Video Editing: Kim Yoon-sung | CG: Ku Jung-eun (UBC) | Produced by SBS Digital News
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