Group Scams $24 Million from Deaf People in South Korea

This is a lot of money and a lot of people who were scammed:

Police arrested a group of people with hearing disabilities for allegedly pulling off a fraud scheme and snatching some 28 billion won ($24 million) from about 500 deaf people in Changwon, South Gyeongsang, on Thursday.

The Changwon Jungbu Police Precinct found that eight people with hearing disabilities allegedly told their victims from 2010 to 2016 that if they invested in a real estate development project to build apartments and factories, they would receive three to five times the amount of their investment within three months.

They also allegedly told victims that if the project proved successful, they would be granted expensive cars and pensions in return. Many of the victims borrowed money to make the investments.

These eight suspects, arrested for fraud and organized crime, and their roughly 500 alleged victims all belong to the same private online association of deaf people. Authorities found that the suspects and victims communicated via a group account on a mobile and internet app for non-public communications called Naver Band.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

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