Police bust China-based crime ring engaged in ‘body cam phishing‘

Police bust China-based crime ring engaged in ‘body cam phishing‘. March. 25, 2015 07:24. bibulous@donga.com.

Police caught an organized crime ring engaged in "body cam phishing" from China, which created video clips on sexual acts of Korean men who access online video chatting sites, and robbed 2 billion won (1.82 million U.S. dollars) from 700 people. Body cam phishing refers to crime in which con artists photograph or videotape men’s naked body or sexual acts during online video chatting and rob them of money by threatening with the videos.

The Gyeonggi Police Agency’s investigation team said on Tuesday that it arrested five people including Shin (36), the leader of the crime ring’s Korean operation, on the charges of depriving men of money through body cam phishing, illegally exchanging the money and transmitting it to China (blackmailing and violation of the Foreign Exchange Act), and booked without arrest seven others including Kim (45). Three people including Shin are naturalized Korean citizens and the others are ethnic Koreans in China.

They induced men to conduct sexual behaviors during online video chatting with beautiful women and recorded video clips (body cam). Later, they threatened to release the videos to the victims’ acquaintances and deprived the latter of up to 30 million won (27,200 dollars) per person, pocketing a total of 2 billion won (1.82 million dollars) from July last year to February this year. The money was exchanged at currency exchanges in Yeongdeungpo and Dongdaemun in Seoul, and transferred to Shin’s bank accounts in China. Shin in turn has been found to have transmitted the money to the leader of the organized crime ring in China.

Police confirmed that a total of 31 billion won (28.1 million dollars) was transferred to multiple people including the ring leader in China from bank accounts owned by two including Shin. Chances are high that the other 29 billion won (26.3 million dollars), excluding the money swindled from the body cam phishing scam, is related to crimes. Judging that other organized crime rings could also have been involved in the case, police are expanding investigation.