Approached Over 100 Victims and Stole 12 Billion Won
Ulsan Police Agency Detains 10 and Books 35 in Fraud Case
A group that created virtual personas using 'deepfake' technology, which synthesizes images through artificial intelligence (AI), approached people of the opposite sex, built relationships, and then committed investment fraud, stealing 12 billion won, has been apprehended by the police.
On April 30, the Anti-Corruption and Economic Crime Investigation Unit of the Ulsan Police Agency announced that it had arrested 45 members of a romance scam group and detained 10 main suspects, including the ringleader, identified as A, on charges of organizing, joining, and participating in a criminal organization, as well as violating the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes. The remaining 35 members, including staff responsible for chatting, have also been booked.
The group collected photos of ordinary people from various social networking services (SNS) and used deepfake technology to create a virtual persona, a 34-year-old woman referred to as B. To make B appear as a real person, they specifically set details such as blood type, parents' occupations, family background, education, and assets, and then randomly initiated conversations with men through chat applications.
After beginning contact with victims, staff responsible for chatting, who played the role of B, followed a pre-prepared scenario spanning 10 to 15 days, chatting daily and building trust as if they were in a romantic relationship.
They even conducted video calls using the deepfake persona B to make the victims fully believe in her existence. During these interactions, B claimed to own an apartment in Gangnam, Seoul worth about 4 billion won through investments and said she was running a cafe, encouraging the victims to "study investing together."
Deceived by these words, the victims accessed a YouTube channel recommended by B. At this point, other members of the group, posing as 'financial experts' on the channel, contacted the male victims individually. They then directed the victims to fake investment sites of real investment companies and provided them with bank accounts under borrowed names, inducing them to send funds for cryptocurrency and stock investments.
The male victims, reassured by seeing their investments appear to generate profits on the fake sites, tried to withdraw their earnings, but B cut off contact, making excuses such as being hospitalized.
From March of last year to February of this year, A and the group defrauded more than 100 people using this method, stealing a total of 12 billion won, which they converted to cash through cryptocurrency or gift card trading.
The victims included people with disabilities, small business owners, housewives, and elderly individuals. The amounts lost ranged from as little as 2 million won to as much as 880 million won. Some victims even took out loans to invest.
After receiving reports from victims, the police identified the use of bank accounts and mobile phones under borrowed names and placed the suspects on Interpol's wanted list in Cambodia.
Currently, two main ringleaders, a married couple, are detained by Cambodian authorities, and the police are proceeding with extradition procedures.
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