The Korean National Police Agency said on the 17th that damage from so-called "new scams," including investment chatroom scams, team mission side-job scams, proxy purchase scams (no-shows), and romance scams, has clearly turned to a downward trend.
According to the Korean National Police Agency, damage from new scams in the first quarter of this year (January–March) totaled 293.8 billion won. That was down 11.7% from 332.6 billion won in the fourth quarter of last year (October–December). In May, losses were 68.7 billion won, down 32.5% from 101.8 billion won in April.
The Korean National Police Agency said tailored measures—such as blocking social media (SNS) and scam applications and building a no-show prevention system—proved effective.
In particular, by sending warning alerts to people suspected of being in conversation after being deceived by phishers, the amount lost to investment chatroom scams in May fell to 41.3 billion won, down 26.1% from the monthly average of 55.9 billion won in January–March. During the same period, losses from romance scams also declined 4%, from 7.5 billion won to 7.2 billion won.
Police launched an integrated response unit for voice phishing and financial fraud in October last year and are strengthening cooperation with foreign investigative agencies. With support from the pan-government special task force for transnational crime response (TF), which includes 10 agencies such as the Korean National Police Agency and the National Intelligence Service (NIS), authorities extradited 281 fugitives involved in new scam crimes from overseas to Korea from November last year to May this year.
Police plan to speed up efforts to establish institutional and legal foundations to close gaps in the response to new scam crimes.
National Office of Investigation (NOI) Commissioner Park Sung-joo said, "New scam crimes have the characteristic that victims are drawn into the crime structure without realizing they are being victimized," and urged, "If even a slightly suspicious situation occurs, stop the conversation immediately and first check with 112 or 1394 (the main number of the integrated response unit for voice phishing and financial fraud)."