Daejeon Police Arrest 14 Including Illegal Debt Collectors
If Unable to Repay, Photos of Body Exposure Distributed to Family and Acquaintances
Daejeon police arrested 14 members of an unregistered loan business that lent money at an extremely high interest rate close to 90,000% and threatened borrowers with photos showing exposed body parts in case of delinquency. / Daejeon=Photo by Park Jong-myeong
Loan sharks who lent money at murderous interest rates close to 90,000% and threatened borrowers with photos exposing certain body parts in case of default have been caught by the police.
Daejeon Police Agency announced that they have arrested 14 members, including 3 operators of unregistered lending businesses, on charges of violating the Loan Business Act and the Debt Collection Act.
From January 2020 to last February, they operated unregistered lending companies on SNS, lending a total of 1.34 billion KRW to 334 people at annual interest rates ranging from a minimum of 2,000% to a maximum of 89,530%.
If borrowers failed to repay, they threatened them via phone calls and text messages. For habitual defaulters, they took photos exposing specific body parts and threatened to distribute these photos to the borrowers' families and acquaintances if debts were not repaid.
They also illegally obtained personal information of 507 other debts by paying 10,000 to 20,000 KRW per case or by extending repayment deadlines, targeting debtors working in public institutions.
The police deleted all seized victims' body photos and requested related agencies to delete SNS IDs used in the crimes. They also asked public institutions, whose personal information was leaked, to improve their systems.
A police official said, "When applying for loans after seeing online loan advertisements, please make sure to check whether the company is registered on the Financial Supervisory Service website and report to the police if you experience illegal debt collection."
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