A man in his 20s fined 1.05 million won for free subway rides using his mother's senior citizen card...

Payment of 30 Times Surcharge on Fare for Boarding Section

Citizens are passing through the ticket gates at Gwanghwamun Station in Seoul. Photo by Jo Yongjun jun21@

A man in his 20s was caught after illegally riding the subway using his 60-year-old mother's 'preferential transportation card.' It was found that he had committed fare evasion 20 times over the course of a month using this method.

Seoul Metro announced on the 18th that it plans to conduct a special crackdown and prevention campaign for three weeks until February 2nd to raise awareness that repeated subway fare evasion is a 'criminal act.'

Last year alone, the metro cracked down on a total of 49,692 cases of fare evasion and collected approximately 2.25 billion KRW in additional fines. Among the types of fare evasion detected by the metro, misuse of preferential transportation cards (for seniors, disabled, and veterans) accounted for an overwhelming 83% (41,227 cases).

For example, Mr. A, a man in his 20s living in Seoul, repeatedly used his 68-year-old mother's preferential transportation card to illegally ride from Apgujeong Station on Seoul Subway Line 3 to Guro Digital Complex Station on Line 2 during his daily commute.

However, Mr. A's fare evasion did not last long. Station staff analyzed computerized data to identify suspicious usage times of the card and reviewed closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage from those times, confirming Mr. A's illegal rides.

The station staff noticed that the 68-year-old woman registered on the preferential card and Mr. A, who actually used the card to pass through the subway gates, were different people, leading them to classify him as a suspected fare evader and impose additional fines. Consequently, Mr. A was required to pay the fare for the traveled sections plus 30 times that amount, totaling 52,700 KRW per incident. With 20 instances of fare evasion over the past month detected, he ended up paying a total of 1,054,000 KRW.

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