"No stock investment advisory rooms operated"
Police Agency: "2,500 impersonation fraud cases in 6 months"
Model-turned-broadcaster Hong Jin-kyung warned people not to be deceived by scam crimes impersonating celebrities, including herself.
On the 28th, Hong Jin-kyung said through the community of her YouTube channel ‘Gongbu Wang Jjin Cheonjae Hong Jin-kyung’, “Recently, there has been an increase in scammers impersonating me and other celebrities to induce investments.”
Hong Jin-kyung emphasized, “If you enter the group chat rooms they create, you will see quite a few posts claiming profits, but these are written by scammers and AI (artificial intelligence) who change names repeatedly. So please do not be deceived.”
She continued, “I do not operate anything like ‘Hong Jin-kyung Department of Economics,’ nor do I run any stock investment-related leading rooms. The estimated damage caused by these scams exceeds 1 trillion won, but since the scammers’ accounts are mostly overseas, it is difficult to catch or punish the perpetrators.”
Hong Jin-kyung added, “At this point, what we can expect is to be cautious ourselves and hope that the technological capabilities of platforms like Meta and Google will be strengthened to quickly detect and block scam advertisements. I ask everyone to report scam accounts whenever they find them.”
On the 30th, the Economic Crime Investigation Division of the National Police Agency announced that from September last year to February this year, about 2,500 cases of illegal activities in investment leading rooms, including celebrity impersonation scams, were reported. The amount of damage reached 230 billion won.
On the afternoon of March 22, 2024, at the Press Center in Jung-gu, Seoul, broadcaster Song Eun-yi (right) is speaking at a press conference urging the resolution of online phishing crimes impersonating celebrities. [Image source=Yonhap News]
Earlier, on the 22nd, members of the group for solving online phishing crimes impersonating celebrities (hereinafter Yusamo), including broadcaster Song Eun-i, famous lecturer Kim Mi-kyung, John Lee (former CEO of Meritz Asset Management), and Joo Jin-hyung (former CEO of Hanwha Investment & Securities), held a press conference urging measures to prevent damage.
At the press conference, Yusamo members said, “While damage to reputation is unfair, we stand here with an urgent feeling that we must prevent further victims from online phishing crimes impersonating celebrities,” and issued a statement calling for efforts from platforms and the government. The list of signatories to the statement included 137 people such as entertainer Yoo Jae-suk, singer Uhm Jung-hwa, and YouTuber Dotty.
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