Gwangju Immigration Office Transfers Vietnamese Student for Forging and Selling Fake Airline Tickets

Sophisticated Forgery So Precise It Is Difficult to Distinguish Authenticity with the Naked Eye

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Chunsu] A Vietnamese international student who exploited a system temporarily extending the stay period for foreigners struggling to obtain departure flight tickets due to reduced flights caused by COVID-19, by selling forged flight tickets, has been apprehended by immigration authorities.

The Gwangju Immigration Office (Director Lim Chaeim) announced on the 10th that it has identified and referred to the Gwangju District Prosecutors' Office without detention a Vietnamese national student A (27, female) for violating the Immigration Control Act and forgery of private documents. She had been forging electronic flight tickets and selling them to fellow nationals residing in Korea.

Ms. A is suspected of selling the forged departure flight tickets, which she personally altered, to 15 Vietnamese individuals at a price of 20,000 to 30,000 KRW per ticket since March of this year.

She posted advertisements on social media under the title "Flight Tickets for Stay Extension Sale," recruiting Vietnamese people who needed departure flight tickets to extend their stay period. After collecting personal information such as names from the Vietnamese individuals, she forged the tickets by falsely entering the recruited individuals' names, flight numbers, and departure dates and times onto original flight ticket files belonging to third parties.

Investigations confirmed that the forgeries were extremely sophisticated, making it difficult for ordinary people to distinguish their authenticity by appearance alone.

A representative from the Gwangju Immigration Office's Metropolitan Crackdown Team stated, "Due to the prolonged COVID-19 situation, flight operations have decreased, and we anticipate more cases of forged flight tickets being sold to foreigners unable to depart because of COVID-19. We will expand investigations and respond strictly with criminal penalties upon detection."

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