Atlanta Consulate warns Koreans of impersonation phone scams

The Atlanta Consulate warned ethnic Koreans across the Southeastern United States about a surge in phone scams that use fabricated court documents and threats of arrest to obtain personal information and money, according to Korea Daily.

The scheme combines calls displaying the consulate's actual main phone number with fraudulent websites and follow-up calls from supposed investigators, Korea Daily reported. Targets are told to keep the purported investigation secret, even from relatives, while moving their money to accounts or cryptocurrency wallets designated by the callers.

According to Korea Daily, callers introduce themselves as consular employees using the names Jung Seung-beom or Seo Min-je and say South Korean court documents need urgent attention. The report does not establish those names as the callers' real identities.

The callers direct targets to fraudulent websites that lack the official South Korean government domain, .go.kr. The pages produce fabricated warrants and criminal allegations regardless of the name or resident registration number entered, the newspaper reported.

Subsequent callers pose as South Korean police officers or representatives of the Financial Supervisory Service or Major Crime Investigation Agency. They demand photos of passports and U.S. driver's licenses, bank balances and, in some cases, call logs, alibis and transaction histories.

The pressure extends beyond demands for documents. Targets are told to take a week off to cooperate with the supposed investigation and to transfer money into accounts presented as safe, according to Korea Daily. The consulate also reported increasing use of cryptocurrency ATMs to deposit cash into specified cryptocurrency wallets.

Sung Myung-hwan, a police consul at the General Consulate, said scammers remain in contact until victims have exhausted their funds and often push them to borrow money, Korea Daily reported.

Korea Daily reported that authorities had received no reports of credit cards or mobile phone accounts being fraudulently opened using identification exposed in this particular scam. That finding was limited to those forms of identity misuse, not the demands for money described in the warning.