By Jun Ramirez

Bureau of Immigration (BI) officers at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) have intercepted a Korean fugitive wanted by authorities in Seoul for cyber fraud.

In a report to Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente, BI port operations chief Grifton Medina identified the passenger as 36-year-old Yun Kyungmin.

Medina said Yun was about to leave for Hongkong when he was stopped from boarding his flight by the immigration officer who found that his name is in the Interpol’s database of wanted foreign fugitives.

It was learned that Yun is subject of a red notice that Interpol issued in December last year after Korean authorities reported that he is wanted for prosecution.

His government had cancelled his passport and a warrant for his arrest was issued by the district court in Daejeon, South Korea.

Reports from lawyer Rommel Tacorda, BI’s border control and intelligence unit (BCIU) chief, disclosed that Yun was accused of operating an illegal call center in Dalian, China that engaged in voice phising activities to defraud unsuspecting Korean victims.

Cyber criminals resort to the fraudulent schemes by attempting to steal sensitive information through phone calls that seems legitimate, thus victims are duped into believing that the call is from a trusted source.

Korean prosecutors alleged that from 2016 to 2018 Yun and his cohorts managed to defraud some 42 victims whose combined money losses amounted to US$2 million.

Usually, the suspects would call their victims and pretend to be police detectives or prosecutors. They would scare the former with threats of arrest and prosecution and instruct them to deposit money into bank accounts owned by the cyber syndicate.

Yun was booked on the next available flight to Korea.