'Romance Scam' Posing as Love to Extort Money... 70% of Victims Are Women

Study on the Current Status and Countermeasures of Romance Scams

A survey revealed that 70% of victims of 'Romance Scam'?a scheme where money is extorted under the pretense of romance on the internet?are women.

According to the study "Current Status and Countermeasures of Romance Scam" by Park Beom-jin, a master's student at Korea University's Graduate School of Information Security, published recently in the academic journal Digital Forensics Research, among 280 reports filed as romance scam crimes in the Police Cybercrime Reporting System from January to June last year, 71.4% (200 people) were women and 28.6% (80 people) were men.

By age group, those aged 20 and under accounted for the largest share at 52.1% (146 people), followed by those in their 30s at 35.4% (99 people), 40s at 10.7% (30 people), and 50 and above at 1.8% (5 people). Overall, 87.5% of victims were young people aged 30 or younger.

The places where victims first met the scammers were mostly SNS, messengers, or dating apps. Instagram was the most common at 27.7% (75 cases). Dating apps Wippie accounted for 14.0% (38 cases) and Tinder 7.0% (19 cases) followed.

Park analyzed, "People in their 30s and younger, who are accustomed to online life and familiar with meeting people remotely, are likely to continue to be targets of romance scam crimes."

The total amount of damage was calculated at 3.77465 billion KRW, averaging about 630 million KRW per month. Citing data from the National Intelligence Service, Park noted that the damage amount, which was around 370 million KRW in 2020, increased more than fivefold to 2.07 billion KRW from January to November 2021, and predicted that in 2022, the damage had already exceeded the 2021 scale in the first half of the year and could continue to grow.

By crime type, currency exchange fraud was the most common at 55.4% (155 cases), followed by cost payment fraud at 37.1% (104 cases), and coin investment fraud at 7.5% (21 cases). Currency exchange fraud involves impersonating a Korean with a likable appearance and telling victims, "I live abroad, and if you do not exchange points charged in cash on a site within a few days, they will all expire," then asking victims to deposit money into their accounts and send it.

Cost payment fraud is the most traditional method, involving impersonating deployed soldiers, UN doctors, or wealthy foreigners and requesting payment for fees, customs duties, or surgery costs. Coin investment fraud involves impersonating wealthy foreigners or Korean-foreigners, deceiving victims by claiming to have made large profits through cryptocurrency investments, and then inducing them to invest.