The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency's Cyber Crime Investigation Division on Sunday said it had requested an arrest warrant for a 42-year-old loan go-between, identified by his surname Chun, who has fled to China. Chun is charged with W2.7 billion in illegal gains (US$1=W1,010) earned through buying information stolen by a Chinese hacker from some 2,000 Korean bank, loan firm, Internet shopping mall and university computer networks, and then using the data to mediate deals for Korean loan sharks.

In addition to Chun, police arrested without detention six others including "Shin" (42), who ran a loan mediating company using illegally obtained credit information. A warrant was also requested for "Im" (29), who has also fled.

Police say the suspects bought 9 million files of stolen data from a Chinese-based hacker for W15 million in May 2006. The data include personal resident registration numbers, phone numbers and credit info. Using the data, the suspects allegedly called people who had previously borrowed loans or were thought to be in need of money and introduced them to loan sharks in the non-institutional financial market.

The suspects allegedly charged a commission of 5 to 15 percent per loan for a total of 1,100 deals, netting some W2.5 billion. Chun also allegedly sold the information he bought to another loan dealer for W220 million.

The 9 million files accessed by the Chinese hacker include 4.8 million from banks, 260,000 from loan firms, 650,000 from online shopping malls, 5,300 from universities and 3.2 million from other websites.

(englishnews@chosun.com )