Why Toss Bank hired veteran police officers to fight voice phishing

"I received an event flyer on the street with a QR code on it — how can I tell whether it's a scam?"

The question came from Jo Ok-dan, 68, who raised her hand during a financial fraud prevention lecture at a senior welfare center in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul. Jeong In-tae, a prevention officer with Toss Bank's Financial Fraud Prevention Unit who was leading the session, told her to ask the generative AI built into KakaoTalk whether the link was safe before opening it — a practical tip showing that even increasingly sophisticated link-phishing scams can be quickly verified using freely available AI tools.

The "Neighborhood Financial Fraud Prevention Officer" program, a corporate social responsibility initiative Toss Bank launched this month in partnership with the Korean National Police Agency's Integrated Response Unit for Telecommunications Financial Fraud, has drawn strong responses in the field. All 26 prevention officers serving as educators in the program are former police officers — retired veterans who spent their careers catching financial fraudsters and dissecting their methods, and who are now putting that expertise to work educating the public.

Jeong, who led that day's lecture, is a veteran of financial crime investigation, having spent 23 years in investigative units including stints as head of the voice phishing arrest task force at the Seoul Dongjak Police Station and team leader of the police investigation unit under the government's joint voice phishing crime investigation team. His partner that day, Lee Heung-sin, served as a police civil servant for 36 years and nine months, accumulating wide-ranging field experience in property crime, economic crime, civil complaints and domestic violence counseling.

The prevention officers work in pairs — 13 teams in total — focusing their outreach on 14 high-risk neighborhoods in Seoul where voice phishing losses exceeded 10 billion won ($6.47 million) in the previous year, including Yeongdeungpo-gu. Toss Bank plans to expand the program beyond Seoul next year.

That day's lecture covered the latest sophisticated fraud tactics and concrete steps people can take to protect themselves. Jeong particularly warned the audience about fake websites designed to lure victims into surrendering personal information. "Fraudsters exploit the fact that ordinary people rarely visit the Korean National Police Agency's official website," he said. "They set up counterfeit pages that mimic it, then pressure victims — telling them they are implicated in some crime and must pay money to the police — to extort funds."

Jeong shared three key steps people should take when asked to click a suspicious link: check whether the site is legitimately registered using WHO IS, a domain registration lookup service; verify the site's safety using a free generative AI tool such as ChatGPT available on KakaoTalk; and immediately switch the smartphone to airplane mode the moment a fraudulent link is clicked or voice phishing is suspected. "Turning on airplane mode is the surest way to cut off a fraudster's remote control of your phone and block any further access in the moments before you can get to a police station to report it," Jeong said.

Because these former officers understand exactly how crimes unfold, their ability to explain why people fall for certain tactics — and at what point they should stop — kept the audience highly engaged. Among those attending was Jang Mi-young (a pseudonym), 45, whose mother had lost 60 million won to a voice phishing scam in which the caller impersonated a prosecutor. "The total my mother has lost to scams large and small is already enough to cover the deposit on a Seoul apartment," Jang said. "I came because I think the only way to prevent more losses is to properly understand how these scams work."

What brought these veteran investigators back to the front lines after retirement? Having encountered countless fraud schemes during their careers, they came to feel viscerally that stopping financial fraud was a matter of life and death.

Jeong recalled a case in which an accounting employee at a large conglomerate lost 300 million won in a financial fraud scheme and died by suicide just 10 hours after filing a report. "The investigation had barely started when the victim, overcome with despair, ultimately took their own life," he said. "I was consumed by guilt and suffered from trauma for a long time afterward. Working as a prevention officer — stopping people from being defrauded before it happens — felt like the way to overcome that trauma and give back to society as a former police officer."

Lee, who was working alongside Jeong that day, also pointed to a recent case in Eumseong-gun, North Chungcheong Province, where a mother and son who had lost 50 million won to a voice phishing scam were found dead, having left notes describing their anguish. "Financial fraud takes lives," Lee said. "That makes education and counseling — so people can be protected before it happens — truly critical."

If you are thinking about self-harm or suicide, contact the Ministry of Health and Welfare's helpline 1393, available 24/7. Please request a translator for English-language services.