A group has been arrested by police for illegally using electricity worth approximately 1 billion won by cutting the wires leading into electricity meters to pay lower electricity bills than their actual usage.

The Jeonbuk Provincial Police Agency announced that it has arrested two individuals, including a 40-something electrical equipment company representative surnamed A and a 40-something broker surnamed B, on special theft charges, and forwarded two others to prosecutors without detention.

Police have also booked and are investigating 67 commercial building owners who requested the crime on the same charges.

A and the others are accused of using 8.41 million kWh of electricity without authorization across 91 commercial buildings between October 2020 and May 2026 by cutting parts of the electric meter wires so that electricity was supplied without passing through the meters.

This amount of electricity is equivalent to what about 40,000 households could use in a month, based on the average monthly electricity consumption of 214 kWh per household in Jeonbuk Province.

Police believe that they avoided paying 950 million won in electricity bills by cutting two out of three wires so that only one-third of the supplied electricity was registered on the meters.

After receiving a tip in March that electricity meters were being manipulated in some areas of the province, police cooperated with the Jeonbuk Headquarters of the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) to inspect electricity meters across the entire province, ultimately identifying A and the others.

It was found that A, who had worked in an electricity-related field, was introduced to commercial building owners through brokers, performed the wire-cutting work, and pocketed work fees.

Investigators discovered that B and the others approached building owners claiming they could "save on electricity bills," while in some cases, building owners contacted B first.

When police investigations began, the suspects even restored the severed wires.

The Jeonbuk Headquarters of KEPCO, which confirmed the illegal acts, imposed a total of 2.9 billion won in penalties—three times the cost of the unauthorized electricity used—on the commercial building owners.

(Photo provided by Jeonbuk Provincial Police Agency, Yonhap News)