A senior South Korean law enforcement official has outlined how the country is fighting online fraud, detailing a three-part strategy of prevention, arrests, and international cooperation — and pointing to significant results from a partnership with Cambodian authorities.

Senior Superintendent Kim Hyun Soo, who heads the Economic Crime Investigation Division of the Korean National Police Agency, presented Seoul's approach to tackling transnational crime at the International Conference on Combating Online Scams (ICCOS) on September 24.

Prevention: Blocking Criminal Tools Before They Cause Harm

Kim explained that the first pillar goes beyond raising public awareness. It focuses on rapidly cutting off the tools criminals rely on — fraudulent phone numbers, malicious apps, and compromised bank accounts — before victims are targeted.

A key component is an emergency phone number blocking system. When a suspicious number is flagged, the report is forwarded to the National Counter Scam Bureau for analysis. Telecom companies then block confirmed criminal numbers within roughly 10 minutes.

"When a suspicious phone number is reported, the information is sent to the National Counter Scam Bureau for analysis. Working together with several telecommunication companies, the numbers confirmed to be used for crime are blocked within about 10 minutes," he said.

Between 500 and 1,000 numbers are blocked daily, and approximately 300,000 have been taken down over the past ten months.

Arrests: Connecting the Dots Across Cases

The second pillar centers on identifying and linking cases to the same criminal networks. By cross-referencing phone numbers, bank accounts, and social media profiles, investigators consolidate related cases for concentrated pursuit. In 2025, nearly 24,000 cases were grouped into 262 separate operations.

Cooperation: Working Across Borders

The third pillar stresses the importance of partnerships with law enforcement agencies worldwide, including Cambodia. South Korean officers have been embedded with a Special Task Force on Transnational Crime in the country.

Kim noted that since a memorandum of understanding was signed with Cambodia, 173 individuals linked to online scam operations have been sent back to South Korea to face prosecution.

"These were Korea's largest repatriation operations of their kind. I would like to take this opportunity to once again express our sincere appreciation to the government of Cambodia and the Cambodian National Police," he said.

Measurable Impact — and Emerging Threats

The strategy has yielded tangible results. Voice phishing cases dropped 43% and financial losses fell 49% in the first half of the year compared with the same period last year.

Still, Kim cautioned that significant challenges loom. The growing use of artificial intelligence is making fraud more convincing, with AI-generated voices, videos, and malicious apps enabling more sophisticated schemes. Criminal networks are also becoming more geographically mobile, operating and relocating across multiple countries. And the rise of virtual assets is allowing illicit funds to move more freely across borders, making them harder to trace.

To address these evolving threats, Kim called for new response strategies, expanded joint operations, faster disruption of money flows, and stronger efforts to recover assets for victims.