Voice Phishing Phone Scam Spreads In Asia

Seoul (AHN)-Voice phishing telephone fraud is spreading in Asia and Taiwanese police officers have been invited by their Korean colleagues to shed light on the transnational crime.

The victim is contacted by telephone usually by a "bank official" who inquires about his or her account. Or a "police officer" calls to say an accident or crime has happened. All lead to the victim shelling out money mostly through an automated teller machine.

According to the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) of Taiwan, the scam has spread in recent years to South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines and even China.

About 4,200 such cases were reported in South Korea between June 2006 and July this year, according to the National Police Agency. The financial damage of those cases totaled about 40 billion won ($43.6 million).

Sixty percent of those arrested are Chinese or Taiwanese, The Asahi Shimbun reported. Taiwan has apparently become a stronghold of telephone fraud cases that have spread in some Asian countries, it said.

The telephone scams started in the late 1990s and began to spread in Japan and Taiwan almost simultaneously.

In 2006, Taiwanese police arrested two men in connection with telephone fraud cases, saying the suspects had been committing crimes in Asian countries by subtly using high-tech tools from Taiwan.

Some groups relocated to Amoy in mainland China's Fujian province and have cheated people in and around the city, the CIB says.