Police arrested 41 people suspected of laundering hundreds of billions of won in criminal proceeds from an investment chatroom scam organization based in Cambodia.
North Gyeongsang Provincial Police Agency said on the 16th that it arrested 18 people and booked 23 without detention on charges including aiding and abetting fraud for laundering criminal proceeds from an investment leading scam.
Police received a case in Feb. in which scammers impersonated financial experts on Naver Band and said that investing under the names of institutions such as securities firms would yield favorable profits, swindling about 547 million won. After about seven months of investigation from Apr. to Oct., they arrested first-, second-, and third-tier money mules who laundered about 52.5 billion won in criminal proceeds in Seoul, South Gyeongsang, South Jeolla, and other regions nationwide.
They was found to have laundered victim funds in Korea after prearranging with an overseas laundering ringleader in places such as Sihanoukville, Cambodia. Excluding the overseas ringleader, five domestic ringleaders had already been arrested and incarcerated, and police conducted the investigation while they were in custody.
According to police, the domestic ringleaders established three sham gift certificate sales corporations in areas including Gangdong District, Seoul, to launder funds and even drew in friends and school acquaintances as employees to involve them in the crimes.
Those arrested as money mules were in their 20s to 50s, and among them were relatives such as married couples, siblings, and uncles and nephews.
Analyzing about 150 of the accounts used in the crimes, police confirmed that approximately 52.5 billion won in investment leading scam proceeds was concealed and laundered, then delivered via the domestic laundering ringleader to the overseas investment scam ringleader.
A police official said, "Through a broad investigation, including analyzing conversations with accomplices via fake sales slips and mobile phones seized from the money mules, we sequentially identified not only domestic mules but also overseas ringleaders and uncovered the full picture of the investment leading scam laundering organization," adding, "We are tracking the overseas laundering ringleader who has not been apprehended and the criminal proceeds."
Police said they identified the identity of a Korean man in his 50s, believed to be the overseas ringleader located in Cambodia. Police plan to promptly seek an arrest warrant, invalidate the passport, and request an Interpol red notice.