Fake shaman couple nets 8.7 billion won

A married couple accused of extorting roughly 8.7 billion won from an acquaintance by inventing a fictitious shaman and manipulating the victim psychologically has been arrested and indicted following a supplementary probe by prosecutors.

The Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office said its Major Economic Crimes Investigation Unit indicted the couple, both in their 40s, last month on charges including blackmail and fraud under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes. The two were taken into custody before the indictment.

Prosecutors allege the couple obtained a 1 billion won stake in an apartment and 7.7 billion won in checks from a woman they met at a parents’ gathering in 2018. They allegedly approached the victim, who was raising a child with a disability, and claimed they knew a renowned shaman who could cure the child. They then provided contact information for a purported shaman identifying herself as Jo Mal-rye.

Over several years, the victim exchanged text messages with the purported shaman. Convinced that Jo had intimate knowledge of her personal life, she complied with the instructions she received, including filming sexually explicit videos of herself. Prosecutors said she later surrendered the apartment stake and checks after being threatened that the recordings would be revealed to her family.

Investigators subsequently determined that Jo Mal-rye did not exist and was a fabricated persona created by the couple. The 49-year-old husband allegedly impersonated the shaman, drawing on information he had obtained about the victim at the parents’ gathering to win her trust. The couple is also suspected of approaching the victim’s husband and, through similar tactics, inducing him to embezzle about 6.5 billion won in company funds.

The case surfaced after the victim’s husband was reported for embezzlement and became the subject of a prosecutorial investigation. After taking over the case from police, prosecutors suspected additional parties may have been involved and launched a supplementary probe.

Most of the embezzled corporate funds were transferred to bank accounts held by the accused couple. The victim reportedly told investigators that her husband committed the offense after being deceived by the fabricated shaman because of her. Through a compulsory investigation, prosecutors said they secured substantial evidence showing that the couple defrauded the victim by creating and operating the fictitious shaman persona.


고도예 yea@donga.com