Couple who posed as fake shaman to extort millions face additional false-report charges

A couple sentenced to heavy prison terms for extorting a large sum from a victim by impersonating a fictitious shaman named "Jo Mal-lye" have been additionally indicted on charges of filing a false report.

The Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office said Friday that the couple — identified only by their surnames Jang, 49, and Shim, 47 — were additionally indicted on charges of falsely accusing a victim of attempted child abduction.

According to prosecutors, the couple met victim A through a parents' association at a private elementary school in Seoul around 2018. They then used the fictitious shaman persona "Jo Mal-lye" to psychologically manipulate A over an extended period through text messages and other means — a practice known as "gaslighting" — while extracting large sums of money.

Posing as a shaman, they coerced A into filming sexually explicit videos, then threatened to share the footage with A's family. Through this scheme, they seized an apartment stake worth 1 billion won ($681,000) and additional assets valued at 7.7 billion won.

Prosecutors found that around September 2019, the couple had instructed A — under the guise of a "mission from Jo Mal-lye" — to go to the school and take their children out to play, while simultaneously spreading false rumors among school staff that A had attempted to kidnap the children.

When the couple learned in 2024 that A had filed a complaint against them on fraud and other charges, they filed a counter-complaint in April last year, falsely accusing A of attempted child abduction — treating the rumors they had themselves spread as fact — in an effort to pressure A into withdrawing the complaint.

Prosecutors determined that the couple had filed the false counter-complaint to pressure the victim into dropping the existing complaint, and indicted them on charges of filing a false report.

Earlier, following A's complaint, the couple were tried on charges of fraud and extortion under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes. On July 14, the Seoul Southern District Court sentenced them to 20 years and 17 years in prison, respectively.

"We will respond firmly to exploitative crimes that use gaslighting and to false-report crimes that undermine the judicial order, and will do our utmost to support the recovery and protect the rights of victims who have suffered psychological manipulation," prosecutors said.