There has been a spate of new voice phishing cases in which scammers pose as public institutions—such as city hall officials, university staff, or prison employees—and demand proxy purchases to steal victims' money, prompting a warning.
The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of the Financial Services Commission said on the 9th that financial companies had taken temporary measures in 4,935 cases reported as new phishing through the 4th of this month. Working with the Korean National Police Agency's joint response unit, the FIU prepared guidelines for processing transaction freezes on accounts suspected of new phishing and began the transaction freeze operations on June 30. About a month after the guidelines took effect, 5,000 accounts received temporary measures. On the 7th, the FIU held a "new phishing suspected account transaction freeze system review meeting" with the Korean National Police Agency, the Financial Supervisory Service, and financial industry association officials.
Of these, 3,750 cases involved financial companies classifying accounts as subject to enhanced customer verification under the Act on Reporting and Using Specified Financial Transaction Information and temporarily freezing transactions as suspected new phishing accounts. The FIU reviewed the need for transaction freezes in 1,065 of these cases and notified financial companies of the results.
By type, "romance scams" were the most common with 1,527 cases (about 41%), followed by "no-show/proxy purchase" scams with 1,376 cases (about 37%) and team mission scams with 847 cases (about 22%). In romance scams, perpetrators pose as celebrities, professionals, or special forces soldiers, build emotional bonds online, and then demand money for reasons such as customs fees for packages, airfares, or hospital bills.
The FIU said the fastest-spreading method recently is the proxy purchase scam known as the "no-show scam." In the past, scammers would make large reservations at restaurants, ask the restaurant to purchase premium wine or whiskey from a specific vendor on their behalf, and then fail to show up at the reserved time. Recently, criminals have evolved to impersonate officials from local governments, prisons, and schools—public institutions.
According to the FIU, a perpetrator posing as a city hall official approached a business owner, saying, "We need to buy vehicle radios for city hall, and the regular wholesale price is cheaper than the public institution supply price," and offered to pay the price difference if the owner made the purchase on their behalf. The scammer then introduced an employee of a fake vendor and induced a bank transfer to steal the money.
The FIU emphasized, "Thoroughly verify the identity of public institution employees, and be especially cautious with calls made to mobile phones," adding, "Requests for proxy purchases are 100% no-show scams and must be rejected immediately."
In a "team mission scam," perpetrators recruit victims in group chat rooms and the like, pretending that they can earn money by completing missions such as writing free trial reviews or watching videos, then demand deposits as investment funds or security deposits.
The FIU plans to reflect the discussions from the review meeting in its operational guidelines and strengthen its processing capacity by adding dedicated staff.