'Mail Arrival Notice' Trusted... It Was a Perfect Bait

Application for Stability Fund for Sole Proprietors and Mail Arrival Notice
Beware of Forced Use of Gonggye and Threats to Physical and Personal Safety

Recently, there has been a surge in voice phishing scams using fake postal mail, requiring increased caution.

Fake mail arrival notice. [Photo by National Police Agency]

On the 30th, the National Police Agency's National Investigation Headquarters (NIH) announced that multiple cases have been confirmed where criminal organizations send fake postal mail through post offices or directly place them in mailboxes, and investigations are underway.

These groups impersonate public institutions affiliated with Gyeonggi Province and send forged postal mail such as application forms for small business stabilization funds, inducing victims to call the voice phishing perpetrators.

Last month, a large number of fake postal arrival notices were found in the Gyeongju area of North Gyeongsang Province, prompting police investigations.

When calling the phone numbers listed on the fake notices, victims were deceived with tactics such as being told to "leave your ID card in the mailbox" or that "the postal mail is at the prosecutor's office."

The police estimate that since the previous method of mass text message sending has been blocked by related agencies or telecommunications companies, the criminals chose to send postal mail directly to evade detection.

Postal mail is difficult to block in advance because the recipient cannot know the contents until opening it, and once opened, the contents, which are designed to look like official documents, are easily trusted.

Fake mail sent by a telephone financial fraud (voice phishing) organization.
[Photo by National Police Agency]

Also, whereas previously threats were made such as "If you do not cooperate, you will be arrested and investigated," recently there has been an increase in methods directly threatening the victim's body or personal information.

In Chuncheon, Gangwon Province, a group impersonating investigative authorities threatened a woman in her 20s to "stay at a motel in Songpa-gu, Seoul for investigation," actually confining her in the motel for three days and extorting over 100 million won.

In Seoul, another female victim in her 20s was told, "Since there is a risk of escape, install Telegram and keep a 24-hour video call on," and was then photographed nude under the pretext of a body search.

There were also cases where victims were forced to use a clean phone without malicious app blocking functions. The perpetrators, impersonating investigators, coerced victims into purchasing a clean phone, installing malicious apps, and then controlled them to steal money.

A National Police Agency official explained, "As crackdowns on voice phishing using phone calls or text messages have intensified, it appears that criminal organizations are instead resorting to traditional methods."