[Contribution] Hidden variable that influences voice phishing sentences, ‘case merging’

Youngjin Ahn, attorney at Daeryun Law Firm

There are questions frequently asked by clients involved in voice phishing cases. The question is, why are multiple police stations across the country contacting me even though I only participated in one crime? This stems from the characteristics of voice phishing cases, where investigative jurisdiction is determined based on the region where the victim occurred. From the suspect's perspective, there is great fatigue from having to repeat the same investigation multiple times, but the real problem is that if each person goes to trial, the final sentence can be much heavier than expected.

In this situation, the most important strategy in practice is ‘merging’, which brings together scattered cases. This is because it is more advantageous for the defendant to have multiple cases judged at once in one trial than to be sentenced separately. This is in accordance with the principle of handling concurrent crimes stipulated under Article 37 of the Criminal Act, and in practice, this results in the overall sentence being lowered each time a person is sentenced. In our experience, the effect of reducing the sentence is approximately 20%, so consolidation is not a simple administrative procedure but a practical response to the defendant's right to defense.

However, it is rare for investigative agencies to combine cases on their own. In particular, it is difficult to expect mergers at the police stage due to jurisdictional issues, so actual attempts at mergers begin in earnest from the point when the case is transferred to the prosecution. In this case, it is necessary to go beyond simply submitting a written document, and to explain in detail to the prosecutor's office in charge that multiple cases against the same suspect are in progress, and then collect the cases at the local jurisdiction office. This is where efforts must be made to unite the scattered streams of cases through active communication with investigative agencies.

If some cases have already gone to trial, a more sophisticated response is needed. The key is to match the ‘progress speed’ of the entire incident. For cases indicted first, the date should be adjusted so that sentencing is not carried out quickly, and for cases still under investigation, it should be urged that indictments be carried out as quickly as possible. This is because once the sentence is handed down, it becomes virtually impossible to merge it with the case indicted later. Ultimately, the aspects of voice phishing incidents vary depending on how this complex timing is managed.

Of course, it is not easy to tie together incidents scattered across the country. This is because it requires an arduous process of individually checking and coordinating the different progress of the police, prosecutors, and courts. However, the legal results when cases are merged through such strategic efforts are clearly different from those where cases are not merged. Ultimately, the critical key to lowering the actual sentence in a voice phishing case lies in a carefully designed response strategy from the beginning of the investigation.

● Contributions by external writers may differ from our editorial direction.

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[Contribution] Hidden variable that determines voice phishing sentence, ‘case merging’ (shortcut)