Police have referred 202 people to prosecutors after investigating illegal lenders, customer-data brokers and people who falsely registered as lenders in a case involving vulnerable borrowers. Investigators say 59 members of 19 unregistered lending operations made about 33,348 loans totaling roughly 28.5 billion won to 8,049 people between January 2022 and August 2026, collecting about 22.6 billion won in interest at rates reaching 36,500 percent a year.
The groups allegedly demanded daily extension fees, used contacts of relatives and coworkers for intimidation, encouraged borrowers to take new loans to repay old ones, and faced provisional seizure of about 16.4 billion won in suspected criminal proceeds.