Loan shark ring nabbed for demanding 3,000% interest rate, threatening to distribute nude photos
Dongdaemun Police Station in Seoul is displaying evidence used among a loan shark ring accused of threatening to disclose debtors' nude photos if they don't repay the money with an average of 3,000 percent in annual interest rates, Oct. 30. Yonhap
Police said Monday they have nabbed a ring of loan sharks for extorting nude photos of debtors and threatening to distribute them if they fail to pay back the money in time, while demanding an average of 3,000 percent in annual interest rates.
Police have taken custody of 11 people on charges of taking around 230 million won ($170,051) in profits by lending people money in exchange for their personal information and nude photos, and threatening to distribute the photos if they failed to repay the due amount from October 2022 to July this year.
On Friday, police referred four suspects to prosecutors with physical detention and two people without detention. The remaining five suspects, including the boss of the unregistered private lender in his 30s, are under investigation without physical detention, officials said.
The ring reportedly lent people 300,000 won under the condition of receiving 500,000 won a week later, exceeding the maximum 20 percent annual interest rate allowed by law. If the debtors failed to redeem the due amount in time, the loan sharks demanded an average annual interest rate of 3,000 percent, with the maximum rate reaching up to 13,000 percent, according to officials.
The police said they have identified 83 victims so far, with over 90 percent of them in their 20s and 30s, adding that most of them had a low-credit, low-income status.
Of the total number of suspects taken into custody, police charged six people for organizing and acting in a criminal group, after confirming that they had systematically divided their roles in committing the crime.
The loan shark ring used phones and bank accounts under other people's names and moved the location of their office every three months in order to avoid police investigation.
The police confiscated the phones of the suspects to stop the circulation of nude photos and took protection measures against the victims by referring them to counseling centers and deleting the videos in question.
Meanwhile, police suspect there are more accomplices in the crime and plan to expand their investigation. (Yonhap)