[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Hwang Du-yeol] A group that opened thousands of burner phones under the names of socially vulnerable groups such as disabled people and the elderly and sold them to criminal organizations has been caught.
On the 14th, the Sasang Police Station in Busan announced that they had arrested seven people, including Mr. A in his 50s, on charges of fraud and violation of the Electronic Communications Business Act, and had booked 61 people without detention who provided their names for opening burner SIM cards.
According to the police, Mr. A and others opened 7,711 prepaid SIM cards under the names of intellectually disabled or elderly people from October 2020 to last May and sold them to criminal organizations involved in voice phishing.
The group recruited SIM card name providers by saying on SNS and the internet, "We will pay 60,000 won if you provide a name for a prepaid SIM."
Mr. A opened burner SIM cards at the mobile phone agency he operated using the provided names. Most of the name providers were intellectually disabled or elderly, socially vulnerable groups.
Overview of the criminal activities of the organization supplying voice phishing proxy USIM chips. [Image source=Busan Police Agency]
Mr. A's group hired sales agents and sold about 300 of the opened SIM cards to a Chinese voice phishing organization at 300,000 won each. The SIM cards sold to China were used in 16 voice phishing cases, causing damage of about 540 million won.
The group also sold about 4,500 burner SIM cards to another criminal organization for creating SNS accounts.
Accounts created using burner SIM cards were exploited for promoting illegal gambling sites, recruiting members for virtual asset investment scam chat rooms, and internet goods fraud.
The police believe Mr. A's group is connected to 850 cases involving burner SIM cards worth about 42 billion won.
A police official said, "We requested telecom companies to suspend the use of over 7,000 detected burner SIM lines," and added, "We are continuing investigations into the Chinese voice phishing organization and will do our best to eradicate burner phones and burner bank accounts used as tools for crimes."
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