"I Should Have Known When It Was Half-Price"...Unregistered Driving Lessons Caught Posing as a Legitimate School

Used 137 Straw Bank Accounts...Pocketed About 780 Million Won

A group that ran illegal driving lessons by setting up an unregistered business disguised as a legitimate driving school and luring trainees with low tuition fees has been handed over to the prosecution.

On the 13th, the Seoul Seongbuk Police Station announced that it had sent without detention a total of seven people to the prosecutors, including four individuals such as Mr. A, who operated an unregistered driving training business, and three driving instructors, on charges of violating the Road Traffic Act and the Electronic Financial Transactions Act.

Check cards for shell accounts seized by the Seoul Seongbuk Police Station during an investigation of an unregistered driving training company. Seoul Seongbuk Police Station

According to the police, from November 2024 to January this year, Mr. A and others are suspected of conducting illegal driving lessons approximately 3,200 times nationwide and taking about 780 million won in the name of training fees.

In particular, in order to pose as a legitimate business, Mr. A and his associates operated a website on which they posted a non-existent business registration number and a fake representative's name, and it was found that they received and managed the training fees through straw bank accounts to evade tracking by investigative authorities.

On the 22nd, the police analyzed account fund flows and call records from burner phones to identify the office location and the scale of the crimes, then conducted a search and seizure and apprehended those involved. In the process, they seized 137 debit cards for straw bank accounts and eight mobile phones. The investigation found that this business assigned driving instructors without proper qualifications, used vehicles whose insurance status was unclear, and conducted driving lessons without installing safety devices such as emergency braking systems. They also recruited trainees by offering prices at about half the average cost of driving license training, causing financial damage to properly registered driving schools for automobile licenses.

A police official said, "We will strengthen crackdowns on unregistered driving training businesses and continue to investigate whether there are additional victims."