Woman Asked, "Want to Meet Me?"... Elderly Man Hangs Head Saying, "I Wanted to Die"

"I even made up my mind to die. Why on earth did I get caught up in that..."

Mr. A, a 72-year-old who lost about 94 million won over a period of one year and seven months from June 2024 to January of this year due to a romance scam, dropped his head and lost his voice.

It all started with 35,000 won he handed over out of curiosity.

Mr. A, who lived alone in a public rental housing unit, happened to see an advertisement for a "dating platform" on social media.

He said his heart was swayed as he even had difficulty walking due to hemiplegia from a cerebral infarction.

After receiving the contact information of a woman who allegedly lived near his house, he began exchanging messages with her via Telegram.

The woman demanded money, claiming that he needed to create a "dating card" if he wanted to meet her.

At first, she continuously demanded small amounts of 30,000 to 50,000 won under the pretext that "verification fees must be paid" or "platform credit scores are insufficient." Before he came to his senses, a person claiming to be the "general director of the platform" appeared and demanded millions of won for restoration costs, saying, "An error occurred in the program because of you."

Suffering from threats by the so-called general director demanding money, Mr. A finally confessed the truth to his younger brother, a former police officer.

It was not until May of this year that Mr. A, with the help of his brother, filed a complaint with the police against the woman in question and the general director.

Shaking his head, Mr. A said, "I feel so wronged. With paralysis preventing me from even moving around properly, how could I have thought about meeting a woman and going on dates?"

As society enters a super-aged era, crimes targeting the elderly are steadily increasing.

Studies show that 1 out of every 10 elderly people has experienced crime victimization.

According to the "Survey on the Actual State of Crime Victimization among the Elderly" by the Korean Institute of Criminology and Justice (KICJ) released today (August 6), the rate of elderly people aged 66 and older who suffered crime victimization over the past year stood at 12.1% as of 2024.

Looking at the breakdown by detailed type, property crimes accounted for 10.4%, violent crimes 2.4%, and elder abuse 1.6%.

According to Ministry of Justice statistics, the number of victims of Criminal Act offenses aged 61 and older also surged by over 80% over a decade, rising from 90,026 in 2014 to 162,710 in 2024.

Analysts suggest that as the economic capacity of the elderly has improved through assets and pensions accumulated over time, they have become easy prey for property criminals such as fraudsters.

Fraudsters also exploit the anxieties of older adults regarding their post-retirement years and their psychological reluctance to become a burden on their children.

As seen in Mr. A's case, tactics that prey on the emotional vulnerabilities of seniors whose judgment has become impaired to extort money are also running rampant.

This targets the fact that while the usage rate of social media among the elderly has increased, their understanding of digital technology remains lacking.

Attorney Kwak Jun-ho of Law Firm Chung noted, "There are many cases where new investment methods like coins emerge, and promotions claiming they will help because seniors don't know how to do it themselves lead to fraud crimes. Seniors who are somewhat familiar with the internet often fall for traps because they think they know well."

People close to the elderly, such as caregivers, siblings, children, and relatives, cannot be trusted blindly either.

According to the institute's survey, 78.4% of perpetrators of property crimes against the elderly were "acquaintances."

All perpetrators of violent crimes were people known to the victims, and among them, 47.9% turned out to be well-acquainted individuals such as friends and neighborhood neighbors.

Caregivers accounted for the highest proportion of perpetrators of elder abuse at 55.1%.

This was followed by spouses (17.3%), relatives (11.6%), sons (7.8%), daughters (5.6%), and daughters-in-law (2.9%), in that order.

This is interpreted as the effect of an increasing number of elderly people relying on caregivers rather than spouses or children when they fall ill or have mobility issues amid the rise in single-person elderly households.

Given that only 16.7% of elderly victims were found to have reported their victimization to the police or asked those around them for help, the actual scale of crime victimization is expected to be much larger.

Seniors reportedly cannot bring themselves to share their situations due to feelings of being a burden to their children and shame in front of others.

In fraud crimes, many elderly victims fail to even recognize the victimization, and it is common for them to be reluctant to let it become known externally out of a sense of shame.

A person in their 50s whose 90-year-old mother was assaulted by a caregiver at a nursing home last year choked up, saying, "I was shocked to see deep blue bruises on her face and asked her, 'What happened?', but she didn't say anything for days. She told me later, 'I felt like I was causing you trouble for no reason.'"

Legal professionals point out that crime victimization among the elderly has received less attention than crimes targeting women and children, who are likewise socially vulnerable.

Voices are also rising for the enactment of a special law modeled after Japan's "Elder Abuse Prevention Act" that systematically regulates intervention procedures by criminal justice agencies, punishment of perpetrators, and protection and support for victims.

Experts point out that the increase in crime victimization among the elderly should not be perceived simply as a public security issue, but rather as the absence of a social safety net.

They emphasize that reducing social isolation among the elderly is ultimately the best crime prevention measure.

The institute's survey also showed that elderly individuals who had higher satisfaction in friendships and neighborhood relationships, as well as higher relationship satisfaction with spouses and children, experienced lower levels of fear of crime.

Lee Geon-soo, a professor of police administration at Baekseok University, suggested, "There are still many elderly people left in crime blind spots unless those around them reach out. It is necessary not only to provide crime prevention education targeting the elderly but also to establish a dense communication network so they can receive help from nearby neighbors."
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.