Counterfeit Gift Cards Also 'Thrown'... Victimized by Methods as Sophisticated as Drugs [Economic Crime 24 Hours]

Smuggled In → Distributed → Exchanged All by Different People
Itinerant Traders Bring and 'Throw' Like Drugs

On the morning of October 28 last year, at a gift certificate exchange office in Suji-gu, Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, a Chinese-Korean man identified as A (then 40 years old) came to exchange 150 gift certificates worth 100,000 KRW each from a large supermarket for cash. The exchange office staff purchased the gift certificates, worth approximately 15 million KRW, after deducting a commission. Two days later, on the 30th, A returned with a much larger amount?500 gift certificates worth 100,000 KRW each. A exchanged these gift certificates, worth about 50 million KRW, for cash and left the exchange office without raising any suspicion.

The fact that all the gift certificates sold by A were counterfeit was only revealed a day later, on the 31st. The forgery was discovered during the process of cashing in the purchased gift certificates at an exchange office in Myeong-dong, Seoul, for month-end settlement. Although the exchange office staff tried to track down A through various means, his whereabouts remained unknown.

Surprisingly, A was committing another crime at a different gift certificate exchange office not far away on the same day. That morning, A visited another exchange office and exchanged 247 counterfeit large supermarket gift certificates worth 100,000 KRW each for cash. Because it was the end of the month, when he tried to cash in gift certificates at another exchange office in Bundang-gu, Seongnam nearby, the staff recognized the certificates as counterfeit and cleverly stopped A’s crime. Later that afternoon, A returned to the same exchange office attempting to sell hundreds more counterfeit gift certificates, but was caught red-handed and arrested after the staff reported him.

After receiving the report from the staff, the Yongin Western Police Station in Gyeonggi arrested A on charges of using forged securities and detained him. During police interrogation, A claimed, “I didn’t know the gift certificates were counterfeit. I was just doing a part-time job,” but due to repeated offenses, he could not avoid imprisonment. After further investigation, the police also arrested and detained B (then 24 years old), the courier who delivered the counterfeit gift certificates to A, and handed them over to the prosecution. A and B, who put nearly 100 million KRW worth of counterfeit gift certificates on the market, were sentenced in the first trial to 2 years and 6 months and 1 year in prison, respectively.

Where were the counterfeit gift certificates sold by A and B produced? Surprisingly, the answer was found in Busan. In February of this year, less than three months after the counterfeit gift certificates worth tens of millions of KRW were discovered in Yongin, the Sasang Police Station in Busan sent to the prosecution C (then 61 years old, Chinese nationality), D (then 66 years old, Taiwanese nationality), who were distributors, and E (then 29 years old, Chinese nationality), a seller, on charges of smuggling and selling counterfeit large supermarket gift certificates from China (fraud and use of forged securities, etc.).

C and D are suspected of receiving counterfeit large supermarket gift certificates worth 160 million KRW, secretly brought in by Chinese peddlers through the Incheon Passenger Terminal at the end of last year, and handing them over to the seller E.

E is accused of delivering counterfeit gift certificates worth 80 million KRW to a distributor in Seoul by throwing them into a mailbox near Namguro Station in Guro-gu, Seoul, in December last year, and of selling and hiding some of the remaining counterfeit gift certificates. It is known that they operated under the instructions of a mastermind residing in China through Telegram.

After E was caught by the police while selling counterfeit gift certificates at a casino, all members of the group were arrested one after another. Last month, E visited a hotel casino in Haeundae-gu, Busan, to gamble. After losing all his money, E proposed to a customer F he met at the casino to exchange 10 million KRW worth of gift certificates for 5 million KRW in cash, and F traded without suspicion.

Later, F visited an exchange office to convert the gift certificates into cash. The exchange office owner identified the gift certificates as counterfeit using a counting machine and immediately reported to the police.

After analyzing CCTV footage and tracking their movements, the police arrested the seller E on the 11th of last month at a house in Cheonan, Chungnam. They also recovered counterfeit gift certificates worth 70 million KRW from E’s car in Seoul. On the 16th, the distributors C and D, who were staying in Jung-gu, Incheon, were also arrested.