Arrests Made in Telecommuting Scam

The Cyber Crime Investigation Department under the Seoul Central Public Prosecutors Office, led by chief prosecutor is Lee Chang-se, announced on Sunday that it arrested and indicted six suspects, including one person surnamed Jun (34 years old), running nine online shopping sites for fraud. According to the prosecutors, they defrauded 2,600 victims, including housewives and the jobless, of a total of about three billion won by saying they could make big money for them by selling sell phone handsets.

The prosecution indicted four suspects without detention for allegedly allowing swindlers to use their name on the internet shopping sites run by Jun and put five suspects on the wanted list, including its sales director. According to the prosecutors, form December 2002 until now, those suspects put out ads saying people could make money from 400,000 to 700,000 won a month through telecommuting only for one or two hours a day. After then, they embezzled a total of around 3.083 billion, 1.59 million won per person, from all 2,654 people who responded to their scam under the pretext of making internet homepages.

“Among around 1,300 online sites for selling cell phones distributed to those victims, just about 50 sites sold one cell phone or so, and 12 sites made over 100,000 won a month in profits,” the prosecutors explained.

“Those suspects targeted some specific people like housewives in rural areas incapable of visiting Seoul’s office and jobless people in their 20s. They took turns in doing investment counseling, signing contracts, settling accounts and changing company telephone numbers often to prevent victims from protesting against themselves,” the prosecution said.

Sang-Rok Lee myzodan@donga.com