Last Year's Fraud Losses Total 44.5 Trillion Won... "Personal Information of Multiple Fraud Suspects Should Be Disclosed"

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[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Gwan-ju] A study has suggested that the personal information of suspects involved in ‘mass fraud’ causing multiple victims should be disclosed, and a dedicated task force centered around the police should be established.

On the 8th, Dongguk University Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation, commissioned by the National Police Agency, proposed in the report titled ‘Analysis of the Occurrence and Causes of Fraud Crimes and Police Response Measures’ that ‘disclosure of suspect information’ should be introduced to prevent fraud crimes and strengthen punishment. For mass fraud offenders who commit fraud against unspecified large numbers of people, such as voice phishing and illegal multi-level marketing, disclosing their personal information could eliminate the risk of crime if there is habituality and risk of recidivism.

The report also recommended establishing a ‘Korean-style Fraud Information Analysis Agency’ to unify the fraud-related information collection tasks currently scattered across the National Police Agency’s Investigation Bureau (general fraud), Cyber Investigation Bureau (cyber fraud), and Financial Services Commission (telecommunication financial fraud). The report stated, “If additional personnel and resources necessary for fraud information analysis are expanded for police officers who are crime experts, and if economic crime is integrated and analyzed, effective responses such as early suspect apprehension and prevention of further damage can be achieved, providing much greater benefits to the public’s daily life.” This study is notable as the first research commissioned by the police amid the rapid increase in fraud crimes.

According to the report, the number of fraud crimes in South Korea increased by about 40,000 cases annually, from 267,419 cases in 2018 to 302,038 in 2019, and 345,005 last year. Particularly, the property damage caused by fraud crimes last year amounted to 44.5843 trillion KRW, an 84% increase compared to the previous year (24.2057 trillion KRW). Among these, cases with damage under 10 million KRW accounted for 55%, indicating that the increase in damage was due to a large number of small-scale fraud cases. The report analyzed the increase in fraud crimes by stating, “The increase in economic wealth and the growing elderly population vulnerable to fraud, combined with increased housing instability, have increased the ‘appropriate targets for crime.’ The rise in social networking service (SNS) usage, the increase in the foreign population, and the increase in group fraud involving two or more people have resulted in greater exposure to ‘potential criminals.’”

The police’s ‘punishment’ of fraud offenders continues. From February to last month, the National Police Agency’s National Investigation Headquarters conducted a ‘special crackdown on fraud crimes in the first half of the year,’ arresting 29,881 people and detaining 1,929. By crime type, cyber fraud accounted for the largest number with 12,084 arrests, followed by telephone financial fraud (voice phishing) with 11,248, insurance fraud with 5,602, traffic accident insurance fraud with 659, and jeonse fraud with 168. During this period, the police also focused on cracking down on the four major telecommunication financial fraud tools?burner phones, burner bank accounts, phone number spoofing relay devices, and illegal currency exchange?arresting 3,359 people (116 detained), seizing 31,617 burner phones and related devices, and uncovering illegal currency exchange amounting to 31.2 billion KRW. Additionally, to recover criminal proceeds, a total of 431.5 billion KRW was preemptively confiscated and preserved before prosecution.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.