A, who works at a factory in Cheongju, handed over an ID card and a withholding tax receipt after a proposal from a coworker, a person surnamed Cho, to invest together in real estate auctions. Cho said Cho would win auctioned properties under A's name and split the revenue. But Cho took out a jeonse loan of 208 million won at a bank under A's name and stole the money. Cho hired a stand-in to pose as A and receive the loan at a bank counter. A said, "I don't understand how public agencies and banks can be breached when I didn't cooperate with identity verification."
According to the financial sector on the 16th, the appellate sentencing hearing for Cho, who was arrested and indicted on nine charges including fraud and forging private documents, is scheduled to be held at the Daejeon High Court on the 17th. Cho was sentenced to 17 years in prison at the first trial. A person surnamed Kwon and a person surnamed Kim, who were indicted together on charges of acting as stand-ins impersonating victims at Cho's direction, were sentenced to six years and four years in prison. Cho carried out loan and investment fraud totaling 12.8 billion won.
Cho, who had worked at a factory in Cheongju since 2000, began around 2020 asking coworkers to lend their names, saying, "I will help you make money through real estate auctions." Cho said multiple names had to participate in auctions to increase the chances of winning bids. Coworkers unfamiliar with auctions trusted Cho's words and handed over ID cards, certificates of employment, and more.
Using the ID cards, Cho opened mobile phones under the victims' names. After that, Cho obtained resident registration copies remotely and falsely drafted real estate lease contracts in the victims' names. Cho visited banks in person, submitted the contracts, acted as if Cho were the victims, and took out jeonse loans to steal the funds. In the end, Cho even filed move-in reports in person at a Community Service Center.
With a single mistake of handing over an ID card, one thing after another was breached: mobile phone activation, issuance of various documents such as resident registration copies, fake real estate lease contracts, loans from financial institutions, and even move-in reports.
While falsely concluding various contracts, Cho used a stand-in service. Cho hired someone of the same gender and similar age as the coworker to receive loans. For the real estate lease contracts, the victim who owned the property was listed as the lessor and another victim as the lessee, and the actual contracts were executed by the stand-ins.
Cho took out non-face-to-face unsecured loans under the victims' names and used the issued credit cards for living expenses and other costs. Including the investment funds that Cho induced and stole, the damage amounts to 12.8 billion won. The number of victims was estimated at more than 40.
The financial sector said that because most identity verification procedures are conducted via mobile phone, once a phone is stolen, it is hard to detect falsification. A bank official said, "If a certificate used to sign was issued to a stolen mobile phone, everything would inevitably be breached."