Sisters Who Hired Actor to Pose as Fair Trade Official Handed Heavy Prison Terms

Heavy prison sentences have been handed down to a pair of sisters who swindled acquaintances out of vast sums of money by going so far as to hire an actor to impersonate a Fair Trade Commission employee.

The Seoul Central District Court's Criminal Settlement Division 22 (Presiding Judge Cho Hyung-woo) recently sentenced sister A and her younger sister B to 10 years and 7 years in prison, respectively. They were indicted on charges including fraud under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment, etc. of Specific Economic Crimes, as well as the forging and uttering of official and private documents.

The sisters, who ran an online shopping mall, were indicted on charges of defrauding acquaintances out of approximately 8.3 billion won under the guise of loans between June 2023 and December 2024.

As their shopping mall operating funds ran low, the sisters borrowed a total of approximately 8.088 billion won from two acquaintances by claiming, "We are expecting to receive a large settlement from a client, so we will pay you back later."

They also borrowed 300 million won from a receivables securitization company by stating, "If you securitize the client's receivables and lend us the money, we will repay you as soon as we receive the settlement funds."

To reassure them, the sisters presented a settlement payment confirmation certificate stating that "the client has an obligation to pay 2.1365 billion won."

However, everything regarding the settlement funds was a lie.

The payment confirmation certificate was also a forged document that the sisters had created by arbitrarily manufacturing and attaching the seal of the client company's representative.

Although the acquaintances and the company were deceived by the false documents and lent the money, the sisters continuously delayed repayment by claiming, "The settlement funds are not coming in."

Eventually, when pressed for the reasons behind the delayed settlement payments, the sisters handed over a Fair Trade Commission appearance notice, claiming that "the client is being investigated by the Fair Trade Commission."

This, too, was a lie, and the appearance notice was also forged.

The sisters went so far as to hire an actor to pose as a Fair Trade Commission employee in front of their acquaintances.

In court, the sisters admitted to all charges and appealed for leniency, but the court stated, "The defendants repeatedly deceived the victims over a period of about a year and six months to extort massive amounts of money. In the process, they did not hesitate to repeatedly forge and utter private documents under the name of a client, as well as forge and utter official documents claiming that a Fair Trade Commission investigation was underway and a corrective order had been issued, making the nature of their crimes very poor," thereby handing down heavy prison sentences.

(Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.