Police investigating an illegal gambling ring in South Korea say they uncovered an account-mule network that allegedly exploited dozens of people with hearing impairments.
The scheme was uncovered during an investigation into a relatively modest illegal gambling website that police say handled about KRW5.3 billion (around US$3.8 million) in wagers over five months.
But what initially appeared to be a routine gambling bust soon led investigators to a far larger operation.
Bank Accounts Hijacked
According to the Busan Metropolitan Police Agency, detectives found that many of the bank accounts receiving gambling funds belonged to people with hearing impairments.
When questioned, the account holders insisted they had never gambled and had simply been paid to hand over control of their bank accounts.
Police say that discovery led them to a man in his 40s who worked as an interpreter for people with hearing impairments and had built trust within the deaf community.
Investigators say he falsely claimed that allowing transactions to pass through their accounts would help improve their credit scores. He then passed these accounts to a much bigger illegal gambling organization.
Instead of using conventional payment processors, illegal gambling operators in Asia and elsewhere typically rely on a network of “mule” accounts — bank accounts rented, bought or obtained through intermediaries — to move money while making transactions harder for authorities to trace.
The accounts are often obtained from financially vulnerable people, who are paid to hand over control of their bank accounts.
According to police, the interpreter received KRW1.5 million (about US$1,100) for each account while paying the account holder KRW200,000 (about US$145). Authorities say the network ultimately recruited 90 bank accounts belonging to people with hearing impairments.
Two-Way Gambling
The larger group used the accounts to process about KRW320 billion (roughly US$230 million) in betting revenues through a practice known in Korea reports as “two-way gambling,” in which bets are placed on opposing outcomes across illegal gambling sites to minimize risk while collecting bonuses, commissions or other incentives.
In total, police detained 172 people, including operators of the original gambling website, habitual gamblers, members of the alleged account-distribution network and the larger gambling organization.
Six suspects, including the interpreter, were referred to prosecutors in custody, according to South Korean media reports.
Police described the case as particularly serious because it allegedly exploited a vulnerable community through a trusted intermediary.
“This was a malicious case that exploited the trust of hearing-impaired individuals for criminal purposes,” a Busan police official said, adding that investigators would continue targeting underground financial networks that prey on vulnerable groups.
