Background
Our client was one of the victims of a fraud ring that posed as stock experts on social media. The ring lured victims into messenger chat groups with a supposed profit project run with a well-known brokerage, then had them deposit funds into fake trading websites and apps that displayed fabricated returns.
In September 2025 the defendant agreed to manage the ring's mule accounts for KRW 500,000 to 1,000,000 per account. When an account was frozen after a victim's report, he contacted the victim and offered partial refunds in exchange for withdrawing the report. Through the accounts he managed, about KRW 5,000.29 million flowed in from 38 victims in one scheme and about KRW 3,350.48 million from 48 victims in another.
What Was at Stake
The defendant argued that he was merely an accessory, which carries a reduced sentence, because he had not deceived anyone directly and did not know the ring's methods in detail.
How Changchun Helped
Law Firm Changchun represented our client, a victim, in the criminal proceedings. The court held the defendant liable as a co-principal.
Co-principal liability. Even without knowing every detail, a person who accepts that the accounts he manages are being used for fraud bears co-principal liability.
The victims' position. The court took into account that the victims had not forgiven the defendant and that he had a prior fraud conviction.
Outcome
In June 2026 the first-instance court sentenced the defendant to two years' imprisonment and ordered forfeiture of KRW 2,000,000 in criminal proceeds. Compensation-order applications filed by some victims in the criminal case were dismissed as procedurally improper, so recovery must continue through civil proceedings.
Those who play only a supporting role, such as managing accounts, can face co-principal liability. Victims should plan criminal and civil steps together. (Outcomes depend on the facts of each case.)