The foreign affairs bureau of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said yesterday, “We arrested two individuals, including the ring leader who is a 37-year-old man named ‘Jeong.’ Jeong’s ring purchased game money in China between May last year and last month, then cashed the money through domestic game item brokerages.”

“They then illegally wired a combined 38 million dollars from Korea to China.”

Charges were also filed against 11 Koreans who allowed the scheme to use their bank accounts for money laundering.

Jeong and his ring reportedly sold the game money illegally produced in China using cheap labor and virus programs. They are believed to have taken a commission of three to five percent of the money traded to purchase game money.

The ring used bank accounts opened in the names of other individuals and wired money from the accounts to a Hong Kong-based paper company in the form of payments for product purchase.

A police source close to the case said, on the condition of anonymity, “The ring used a virtual private network for IP laundering. Using the network, the suspects hid their real location. The network made their China-based IP look like that of an Internet cafe in Korea.”