South Korea Details Anti-Scam Strategy as 173 Suspects Are Sent Home from Cambodia

A senior South Korean police official has laid out how his country tackles online fraud, describing a three-part approach built around prevention, arrests and international cooperation, and pointing to strong results from joint work with Cambodia.

Senior Superintendent Kim Hyun Soo, who heads the Economic Crime Investigation Division at the Korean National Police Agency, presented Seoul's methods for fighting cross-border crime at the International Conference on Combating Online Scams (ICCOS) on September 24.

Cutting off the tools of fraud

Kim said the country's first line of defence reaches beyond public education, focusing instead on quickly shutting down the tools criminals rely on — such as fraudulent phone numbers, harmful apps and bank accounts — before they can do more damage. A key example is an emergency system for blocking phone numbers.

"When a suspicious phone number is reported, the information is sent to the National Counter Scam Bureau for analysis. Working together with several telecommunication companies, the numbers confirmed to be used for crime are blocked within about 10 minutes," he explained.

According to Kim, between 500 and 1,000 numbers are blocked each day, adding up to roughly 300,000 over the past ten months.

Making arrests

The second pillar centres on catching offenders. By examining phone numbers, bank accounts and social media profiles, investigators identify cases tied to the same criminal network and bundle them together for a concentrated probe. Kim noted that in 2025, 23,991 cases were linked to 262 distinct operations.

Working across borders

The third element, cooperation, underscores the need to work with police forces worldwide, including in Cambodia, where South Korean officers have partnered with a Special Task Force on Transnational Crime.

Kim said that since a memorandum of understanding was signed with Cambodia, 173 members of online scam networks have been sent back to Korea to face prosecution.

"These were Korea's largest repatriation operations of their kind. I would like to take this opportunity to once again express our sincere appreciation to the government of Cambodia and the Cambodian National Police," he said.

Results and future challenges

Kim said the strategy has paid off, with voice phishing cases falling 43% and related financial losses dropping 49% in the first half of the year compared with the same stretch last year.

Still, he cautioned that serious hurdles lie ahead, particularly the growing role of artificial intelligence.

"First, fraud enablers are becoming more sophisticated with AI such as AI-generated voices, videos and malicious applications. Second, crime is becoming increasingly borderless with criminal organisations operating and relocating across multiple countries," he said.

"Third, with the development of virtual assets the criminal proceeds are moving more freely and when the proceeds cross the border tracing becomes difficult," he added.

To meet these threats, Kim called for fresh response strategies, broader joint prevention and enforcement efforts, faster disruption of the movement of criminal funds, and stronger support for helping victims recover their money.