D-Report: Gang Arrested for Laundering Criminal Proceeds Disguised as Gift Voucher Business

A luxury foreign car is parked on the side of the road.

Men loitering around the vehicle take out a white paper bag from the car and leave the scene shortly after.

What was inside the paper bag was a type of "commission" received in exchange for their criminal activities.

They disguised themselves as a gift voucher business to "launder" the proceeds of a foreign criminal organization into cash, taking a commission in return.

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency's Financial Crime Investigation Division announced that it has arrested 11 members of the group, including the 30-year-old ringleader identified as A, and referred them to the prosecution while in custody.

[Lee Gye-hyung / Chief of Phishing Crime Investigation Team 2, Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency: We have rounded up a domestic money laundering organization that had been meticulously laundering criminal proceeds for overseas phishing groups by disguising themselves as gift voucher business operators.]

The group, composed of individuals in their 20s and 30s, is accused of laundering 3.5 billion won in criminal proceeds from a Cambodian phishing organization between August and November of last year, operating in areas such as Songpa in Seoul and Seongnam in Gyeonggi Province.

The crime was carried out systematically through a five-tier structure: ringleader, director, withdrawal supervisor, withdrawal team leader, and withdrawal agent.

The withdrawal agents at the lowest level would disguise themselves as gift voucher business operators to open business accounts and receive criminal proceeds from the Cambodian phishing organization.

The middle managers—the director, withdrawal supervisor, and withdrawal team leader—would withdraw the criminal proceeds as checks, purchase gift vouchers, sell them again to convert them into cash, and then purchase virtual assets like Tether coins to send them back to Cambodia.

In this process, they took 15% of the laundered funds as a commission from the Cambodian organization. It was revealed that they laundered a total of 3.5 billion won so far, pocketing 861 million won in commissions.

The police have taken measures to freeze and preserve the commissions before indictment and plan to expand the investigation into the Cambodian phishing organization.

Reported by Park Minjun | Video by Bae Moon-san | Video Editing by Park Na-young | Produced by SBS Digital News
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.