The Mastermind Behind Voice Phishing 'Team Leader Kim Mi-young' Arrested in the Philippines After 9 Years

2012 Call Center Setup... Hundreds of Billions in Criminal Proceeds
Seven Key Members Arrested This Year
Cooperation with Philippine Korean Desk and Local Investigative Agencies
Persistent Police Pursuit Yields Results

Team Leader Kim Mi-young, the mastermind A of the voice phishing organization, was arrested in the Philippines on the 4th (local time). [Photo by National Police Agency]

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Gwan-ju] The mastermind of the first-generation voice phishing organization, known by the name "Team Leader Kim Mi-young," who has caused countless hardships for ordinary citizens, was arrested in the Philippines after 9 years.

According to the National Police Agency on the 6th, the police arrested Mr. A, the mastermind of the voice phishing operation and a former police officer, in the Philippines at around 3:30 PM local time on the 4th.

The phone financial fraud crimes of this organization, well known as "Team Leader Kim Mi-young," date back to 2012. They are known to have established a call center in the Philippines and earned criminal proceeds worth hundreds of billions of won. The police investigation led to the arrest of 28 members of the organization in 2013, successfully capturing many domestic members, but key executives including the mastermind Mr. A continued to evade capture overseas.

The police continued tracking them and, upon receiving intelligence on key members, sequentially arrested four individuals responsible for critical roles such as settlement, securing bank accounts, and luring tactics in the Philippines from February to August this year. Additionally, during the "Overseas Special Reporting and Surrender Period for Phone Financial Fraud" ongoing since August, two more members, feeling pressured, voluntarily surrendered to the Korean Desk in the Philippines.

Separately, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency’s Interpol International Cooperation Team, in collaboration with the National Intelligence Service, successfully obtained decisive intelligence on Mr. B, known as an accomplice responsible for securing dummy bank accounts for Mr. A, and arrested Mr. B at his residence in the Philippines on the 25th of last month.

Based on these investigation results, the police confirmed that the mastermind Mr. A was residing about 400 km southeast of Manila, Philippines. Although Mr. A was meticulously evading capture using two aliases, persistent surveillance over two weeks allowed the police to track his movements and ultimately apprehend him. It is reported that Mr. A was dismissed from his police officer position around 2008.

A National Police Agency official stated, "In coordination with the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in the Philippines and Philippine authorities, we plan to promptly repatriate the arrested members to Korea."

Meanwhile, since 2012, the National Police Agency has dispatched a Korean Desk in the Philippines to cooperate on the arrest and repatriation of fugitives abroad and investigations of violent crimes against Koreans. Currently, seven police officers are working at the Philippine Korean Desk.

In particular, the Philippine Korean Desk has recently achieved significant results by arresting the mastermind of a cyber gambling operation worth about 1.3 trillion won and the operator of Korea’s largest prostitution brokerage site "Night War." Furthermore, since the dispatch of the Philippine Korean Desk, the annual average number of Koreans killed locally has decreased from about 10 per year (2013?2016) to about 2 per year (2017?2020).

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