I was scammed by someone who had me send money to a Korean bank account — I'm in the UK. Can I report it in Korea and get anything back?

You can file in Korea from the UK, Korean police do investigate complaints from foreign victims, and the account holder is a real target whether he is the scammer or a mule — under Korean law, lending an account to a fraud scheme is itself an offense, and the person whose name is on the account is the one point of the scheme that is identifiable and inside Korean jurisdiction. On recovery: money moved five times over eight months is largely gone from that account, but the question of what remains, and whether other victims' freezes have caught anything, is answered by procedures, not guesswork. What follows is a realistic map.

What this is under Korean law

The scheme is fraud (사기, sagi) under Article 347 of the Criminal Act — up to ten years' imprisonment — and, because it operated through electronic communications to induce transfers, may also fall under the Act on Prevention of Telecommunications-based Financial Fraud (통신사기피해환급법). The account holder, if he handed over the account for use, has committed a separate offense under the Electronic Financial Transactions Act (전자금융거래법) by transferring an access medium (접근매체, jeopgeun maeche); if he knowingly received and forwarded funds, he is an accomplice to the fraud (사기방조, sagi bangjo). The police distinguish between those on the evidence, and the distinction affects his sentence, not your standing to complain against him.

Filing from abroad

A criminal complaint (고소, goso) does not require the victim's presence. Our firm files it under a power of attorney (위임장, wiimjang), notarized and apostilled in the UK, together with the evidence: the account details, transfer records with dates and reference lines, the messages, screenshots of the profile, and your UK police report. The complaint goes to the police with jurisdiction over the account holder's bank branch or residence. Police may ask for a complainant's statement; for a victim abroad this is commonly taken by written submission through counsel, or by video, and a lawyer handles all communication with the investigating officer so that you are never in a Korean-language exchange you cannot follow.

Korean police receive these complaints regularly. Whether the investigation goes anywhere depends on what the account reveals: who opened it, who accessed it, where the money went next. That is the police's work, done with bank records you cannot obtain yourself, and it is why a filed complaint is worth more than a private investigator.

Tracing and freezing

Under the telecommunications fraud act, a victim can request a payment suspension (지급정지, jigeup jeongji) on the receiving account through the bank; the account is frozen and any balance is subject to a refund procedure for verified victims. Foreign victims can use it, with counsel handling the bank and the Financial Supervisory Service steps. Whether anything remains depends on timing; five transfers over eight months means most of it has moved on, but accounts of this kind are often frozen by other victims' requests, and a balance sometimes exists. The police investigation traces the onward transfers; where the next account is also in Korea, the same tools apply.

Civil recovery against the account holder — a damages claim, with a provisional attachment (가압류, gaapnyu) on his assets — is available and is the realistic route to recovering something from a mule with assets. Whether he has any is checked before money is spent chasing him.

Your situation as a foreign victim

You do not need to travel to Korea to file, to be heard, or to receive a refund. If a suspect is charged and tried, a victim's statement can be submitted in writing. You are entitled to be informed of the outcome of the investigation through counsel.

What to do now, and what not to do

Do not send anything further to anyone claiming to be able to "recover" your money for a fee; that is the second phase of the same scheme. Do not contact the account holder. Do assemble the transfer records with the exact beneficiary name and account number as your bank recorded them, export the messages with timestamps, and preserve the profile images — reverse image searches are part of what the police will do. Then file the complaint and the payment-suspension request together; the suspension is time-sensitive.

From a former police investigator's perspective

Investigators handling a foreign romance-scam complaint know within days whether the account holder is a mule or the operator, from how the account was opened and how the money left it. A mule is charged; the onward trail is what leads to the operation, and foreign victims' complaints are frequently the thread that connects accounts already under investigation. What they cannot do is act on a complaint that never arrives — and most foreign victims never file, because they assume distance means nothing can be done. It does not.

We handle scam complaints for victims abroad, including the account freeze and the civil claim against the account holder, and we will tell you before you spend anything whether the account still has a balance — text consultation or +82-2-522-3959.

— MEGA X Law Firm Korea, Criminal Defense Team