Damages claim against a voice phishing fraudster

Voice phishing crime

Recently, in our society, the damage caused by voice phishing has been growing day by day, and the fraud methods are also becoming more sophisticated over time.

Voice phishing is a fraudulent crime against an unspecified number of victims, in which the perpetrator impersonates an investigative agency or the Financial Supervisory Service, or uses such pretexts as loan offers, family kidnapping, or personal information leakage, to deceive the victims into transferring money or making a deposit without a passbook to accounts managed by the perpetrators, or to hand over money directly to the perpetrators, thereby obtaining the money by fraud.

A voice phishing organization is composed of a 'boss' who oversees the entire operation, a 'manager' who manages the members, a 'recruiter' who calls victims and impersonates financial institutions, a 'cash collector' who withdraws the damage money deposited into accounts and delivers it or meets victims to collect money, and a 'recruiter' who recruits members. The boss and the recruiter operate from overseas bases, making them difficult to arrest, and the cash collector is usually the one arrested.

Recently, a case was introduced in which Joo Youngjae, a criminal law specialist in Daejeon, represented a voice phishing victim, had the cash collector punished, and filed a damages claim, winning the full amount.

Facts of the case

In October 2020, the client was deceived by a voice phishing member impersonating a prosecutor, who said, 'Your account has been used as a borrowed-name account. We must track the money to arrest other accomplices, so withdraw all the money in the account and deliver it to a Financial Supervisory Service official.' Believing this, the client withdrew all 44,000,000 Korean won in the account and handed the entire amount to a cash collector posing as a Financial Supervisory Service official, suffering the loss.

The cash collector was later indicted and detained on charges of multiple voice phishing crimes, and the client sought help from Joo Youngjae.

Joo Youngjae's response

Representing the client, Joo Youngjae submitted a written opinion in the criminal trial to prove the cash collector's guilt and demand severe punishment, and the cash collector was ultimately sentenced to a heavy term.

As soon as the criminal judgment became final, Joo Youngjae filed a damages lawsuit against the cash collector to claim the full amount of the money obtained, using the judgment and indictment as evidence.

In that lawsuit, the cash collector (the defendant) argued that he was merely a low-ranking member and had earned only a few hundred thousand Korean won, so he was not obligated to compensate the full amount. In response, Joo Youngjae argued that since the damage compensation obligation arising from joint tort is a non-genuine joint and several obligation, the defendant, even if only a low-ranking member and with little gain, was obligated to compensate the full amount.

Court's ruling

The court fully accepted Joo Youngjae's argument and ruled in favor of the plaintiff, ordering the defendant to compensate the client for the full amount of the money obtained.

The judgment became final when the defendant waived his appeal.