20 People Caught Using Credit-Defaulter Names to Evade Fines

Twenty individuals, including drivers and identity lenders who deceived enforcement officers by presenting other people's identification cards to avoid overweight violation fines, were caught by the police.

According to the Gyeongnam Provincial Police Agency on the 9th, 13 truck drivers, including driver A, presented identification cards under the names of credit delinquents or wrote resident registration numbers on enforcement confirmation documents on national and local roads nationwide from January 1, 2019, to December 31, 2020.

To avoid paying high fines, they paid a fee of 500,000 KRW per case to seven drivers with poor credit to borrow their identification cards and resident registration numbers.

Police investigations revealed that they exploited the amendment to Article 117, Paragraph 1 of the Road Act, which changed the penalty for the previously criminally punishable act on national and local roads until around August 2010 to a fine of up to 5 million KRW.

Gyeongnam Provincial Police Agency.
Photo by Lee Seryeong

The Anti-Corruption Investigation Division 1 of the Metropolitan Investigation Unit of the Provincial Police Agency arrested them on charges of forgery of official documents under Article 230 of the Criminal Act, forgery of private documents under Article 231, and illegal use under Article 37, Item 10 of the Resident Registration Act.

Through an investigation request from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, it was discovered that unidentified drivers wrote enforcement confirmation documents with different handwriting under the same name during overweight violation enforcement. By analyzing these documents, the identity lenders and drivers were identified and all were arrested.

The fines shifted by the drivers reached 717 million KRW, and the overweight violation fines imposed on the identity lenders ranged from 50 million KRW to 250 million KRW.

The Provincial Police Agency notified the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport of the actual list of enforcement drivers identified and requested correction of the evaded fine penalties. They also requested improvements and supplements to structural issues to prevent similar cases.

A representative of the Provincial Police Agency stated, “We plan to strictly respond according to law and principles to structural illegal activities aimed at evading national agency enforcement. Please be aware that evading enforcement by using another person's identity is illegal and subject to punishment, and if you witness such acts, actively report them.”