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Police have arrested 15 mobile company employees and brokers who earned a total of W360 million by illegally selling the personal information of 6 million people. Three of the suspects have been arrested and one has been put on the wanted list. Police say, based on the number of Internet users, which was 30.67 million as of June, one out of five Internet users had their personal information stolen in this incident.
Seven of the suspects, including employees at mobile phone stores, sold the information of 920,000 customers -- information such as name, mobile phone number, identification number, e-mail address and type of cell phone used, to a telemarketing company in July. The company used the information to solicit those customers to change cell phone operators, subscribe to high-speed Internet service and buy products. In this way, one of them made a total of W130 million and the telemarketing company made between W60,000 and W150,000 for every successful solicitation.
One personal information broker sold information gathered over the Internet to adult content advertisers, at W20 to W200 per item. The broker also sold the information of 5 million subscribers to mobile companies and Internet shopping malls. Police have arrested three people and are looking for the president of the marketing company -- police continue to investigate how the group obtained the information.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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