Police have applied for arrest warrants for all 73 Korean crime ring members who were forcibly repatriated after taking part in scam crimes in Cambodia. It came just one day after they were sent back to Korea via Incheon International Airport on the morning of the 23rd.
The National Office of Investigation (NOI) of the Korean National Police Agency said in a media notice on the 24th, "Police are investigating the criminal allegations of 73 suspects through the 'Pan-government special task force (TF) on transnational crime' and completed the application for arrest warrants for all of them today."
They were escorted to the competent police stations immediately after being arrested on the chartered plane from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, bound for Korea. They are currently being held separately and questioned by the Busan Metropolitan Police (49), the South Chungcheong Provincial Police (17), the Seoul Metropolitan Police (2), and the Ulsan Metropolitan Police (2).
The suspects are accused of swindling about 48.6 billion won from 869 Koreans. Of them, 70 face fraud charges including romance scams or running investment "leading rooms," while the remaining three face charges including hostage robbery and gambling.
In particular, those repatriated include a husband-and-wife romance scam ring that used deepfake technology to create virtual personas and extorted 12.0 billion won from 104 victims. They were found to have evaded investigators by even changing their faces through plastic surgery while on the run.
Others sent back include suspects who posed as investment experts and swindled 19.4 billion won from entry-level workers and retirees, hostage-robbery members who held victims confined in scam compounds as hostages and extorted money by threatening their families in Korea, and fugitives who fled overseas after committing sex crimes against minors.