A so-called 'stock leading room' gang that distributed about 30 million false positive news text messages to artificially boost the stock price of a KOSDAQ-listed company has been brought to trial.
On the 23rd, the Financial Investigation Division 1 of the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office (Chief Prosecutor Kim Suhong) announced that Park (30), who is accused of violating the Capital Markets Act (fraudulent unfair trading) and the Telecommunications Business Act, was arrested and indicted the day before, and accomplice Jung (31) was indicted without detention.
Jung and Park are the representative and operations team leader of the leading room company. According to the prosecution, between August and December 2022, they are accused of using SIM cards under other people's names obtained through a shell SIM card dealer to send about 30 million stock spam text messages containing false or baseless positive rumors to an unspecified large number of people with the purpose of boosting the stock price of KOSDAQ-listed company A. In particular, they are believed to have significantly influenced the market by spreading false or rumor-based text messages under the name of new businesses such as Gwangbio related to company A.
This case was previously referred to the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office by the Capital Market Special Judicial Police (Special Judicial Police) of the Financial Supervisory Service on the 7th. After a large influx of buying orders due to the spam messages, company A is undergoing delisting procedures due to a disclaimer of opinion in its audit report. The Special Judicial Police estimate that damages amounting to about 160 billion KRW in market capitalization have occurred due to this incident.
A representative of the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office said, "After receiving the case from the Financial Supervisory Service, we conducted a thorough supplementary investigation and confirmed that multiple SIM cards under other people's names (shell SIMs) were used in the process of sending a large number of text messages, and additionally recognized the violation of the Telecommunications Business Act," adding, "We will continue to investigate other accomplices and criminal charges related to the allegations."
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