Fraud ring accused of posing as soldiers and UN officials scammed $1.3m from 14 victims in S. Korea

SEOUL - An international fraud ring is accused of perpetrating a romantic scam against 14 victims by assuming the fake identities of US soldiers, UN officials and foreign students, Seoul police said on Nov 19.

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said it has forwarded the case of the criminal organisation with a 44-year-old Russian leader to the prosecution for fraud charges. The Russian leader and eight others have been placed under physical detention.

They are believed to have swindled a total of 1.4 billion won (S$1.3 million) across 68 scams from 14 victims.

The suspects allegedly befriended the victims via fake profiles on various social media pages, assuming male identities to talk to female victims and female identities to talk to male victims.

After earning the victims’ trust and forming romantic relationships, the suspects pretended to be in a troubled situation and requested the victims to wire money under several pretenses.

This included a claim of bank accounts being frozen and asking for transfer fees to “receive gold bars they are getting from UN and Ukraine as compensation”. One of the suspects, who pretended to be a sailor, claimed to be stuck in the middle of the ocean and quickly needed money.

The victim said she borrowed money from her sister to transfer money to the suspect.

In another case, a member of the criminal ring asked a 40-year-old victim to wire a fee needed for packages to pass through customs. The victim ended up wiring 165 million won in total.

The criminal ring reportedly comprised individuals from countries including Nigeria Angola and a naturalised South Korean originally from the Philippines. THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK