450 Million Won Stolen Using Phone Taken from Bathhouse... Targeting Obvious 'Lock Pattern'

Opened the Changing Room with Tools Prepared for Bathhouse
The Damage Increased Due to an Easy Lock Pattern

A man who was imprisoned for stealing lockers in a public bathhouse was caught again by the police for committing the same type of crime. He targeted smartphones with easy lock patterns such as 'ㄱ', 'ㄴ', and 'Z' to steal money amounting to tens of millions of won.

According to reports from Yonhap News TV and MBC on the 8th, a man in his 40s, Mr. A, committed these crimes at six public bathhouses in Jinju, Gyeongnam, from last September to early this month.

Mr. A, who was imprisoned for stealing lockers in bathhouses and released last February, easily opened the locker doors in the changing rooms of a public bathhouse in Jinju last September using tools he had prepared in advance.

After stealing smartphones and wallets, Mr. A left the bathhouse and immediately unlocked the stolen phones. His crimes did not stop there. A few days later, he withdrew cash from a bank ATM using the stolen cards. Moreover, he called the card companies pretending to be the card owners and lied to reset the passwords. He also verified his identity using the ID cards found in the stolen wallets.

During police investigation, he stated that most smartphone lock patterns were simple, such as 'ㄱ', 'ㄴ', and the alphabets 'Z' and 'N', making them easy to unlock.

Mr. A withdrew, borrowed, or received cash services totaling about 45 million won.

One victim revealed, "There were many authentication number messages on the phone. He withdrew 6 million won in cash and took a 3 million won loan, totaling 9 million won."

In the police investigation, Mr. A admitted, "I used the stolen money for living expenses and gambling." The police have applied for an arrest warrant for Mr. A and are continuing the investigation, suspecting that he committed similar crimes in other regions.

A police official advised, "Set smartphone lock patterns so they cannot be easily unlocked, and avoid keeping ID cards and credit cards together in your phone whenever possible."

Do not use birthdays, phone numbers, or simple numbers (12345)

[Image source=Pixabay]

As people age, they sometimes forget their phone or bank account passwords and tend to set simple passwords like birthdays or 1234.

Setting phone patterns using Korean consonants or alphabets is also common in such cases. However, this makes phones or bank accounts vulnerable to crime if lost. Therefore, it is necessary to set patterns that are not easy to unlock and choose bank or card passwords that cannot be easily guessed.

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