The Seoul Central District Court convicted the man, identified only by his surname Chun, of fraud and of violating South Korea's Information and Communications Network Act on Aug. 20, Yonhap News Agency reported.
The bench said he had singled out wealthy targets and stripped them of their assets, and that unlike victims of voice phishing scams, these victims lost everything while defenseless and at no fault of their own.
The Korea Herald reported that the court called the case serious enough to shake the foundations of the country's financial system and found Chun had shown little genuine remorse, having argued that another man was the real ringleader without producing an identity investigators could verify.
Ilgan Sports reported that the panel, under presiding judge Park Jun-seok, was ruling at first instance, leaving the sentence open to appeal.
Chun assembled the group overseas, largely in Thailand, and harvested personal data between August 2023 and January 2025, according to Yonhap. Members activated mobile lines with budget carriers in the victims' names, used them to pass identity verification, and drained bank and cryptocurrency accounts.
