Immigration agents intercepted a Korean fugitive wanted by authorities in Seoul for involvement in cyber fraud at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.
Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente identified the passenger as Yun Kyungmin, who was intercepted at the NAIA Terminal 2.
Yun was about to leave for Hong Kong when he was stopped from boarding his flight by the immigration officer who discovered that his name is in the Interpol’s database of wanted foreign fugitives.
Yun is a subject of a red notice that Interpol issued in December last year after Korean authorities reported that he is wanted for prosecution.
The Korean government canceled his passport and a warrant for his arrest was issued by the district court in Daejeon, South Korea.
Rommel Tacorda, BI’s border control and intelligence unit chief, disclosed that Yun was accused of operating an illegal call center in Dalian, China that engaged in voice phising activities to defraud unsuspecting Korean victims.
Cyber criminals resort to the fraudulent schemes by attempting to steal sensitive information through phone calls that seems legitimate, thus victims are duped into believing that the call is from a trusted source.
Korean prosecutors alleged that from 2016 to 2018, Yun and his cohorts managed to defraud some 42 victims whose combined money losses amounted to more than 2.2 billion won or nearly US$2 million.
Usually, the suspects would call their victims and pretend to be police detectives or prosecutors. They would scare the former with threats of arrest and prosecution and instruct them to deposit money into bank accounts owned by the cyber frauders.
Yun was booked on the next available flight to Korea where authorities were waiting to arrest him upon his arrival.