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Loan sharks who charged 36,500% interest, bullied delinquents with deepfake porn threats sentenced to prison

Published: 25 Nov. 2025, 13:56

[JOONGANG ILBO]

A group of illegal lenders who charged borrowers annual interest rates as high as 36,500 percent and used personal information to threaten victims into repayment were sentenced to prison.

The Ulsan District Court sentenced five individuals to four years in prison each, according to legal sources on Tuesday. The court also ordered them to forfeit between 16.4 million won and 126.75 million won ($11,120 to $85,980).

The group was indicted for operating an unregistered lending business in Daegu between February and November last year. During that time, they extended loans totaling approximately 2.58 billion won across 4,174 transactions and collected annual interest rates ranging from 188.7 percent to 36,500 percent.

They contacted potential borrowers by responding to posts on online loan forums, then collected names, resident registration numbers, contact details and workplace information to assess creditworthiness.

Loans typically ranged from 100,000 won to 300,000 won, with repayment periods of about one week. If borrowers missed the deadline, the group demanded repayment amounts far exceeding the legal cap on interest for unregistered lenders of 20 percent.

In one instance, they lent 200,000 won for a week and collected 350,000 won in return — an annual interest rate of 3,910 percent. Some loans reached interest rates as high as 36,500 percent.

The Ulsan District Court is seen in this file photo [JOONGANG ILBO]

During the lending process, the group also collected the contact information of borrowers’ family members and acquaintances and required borrowers to submit photos of themselves holding loan agreements, which they later used in their collection efforts.

If a borrower failed to repay, the group sent text messages and made phone calls threatening to “edit photos of your sister and mother into sexually exploitative videos and sell them on adult websites,” or to “distribute the contact information you gave us to voice phishing syndicates.”

They also threatened to use facial images from borrowers’ social media profiles to spread rumors that the borrower belongs to a "degenerate family that pimps out its members.”

“The defendants engaged in illegal private lending using burner phones and accounts out of greed for easy money and participated in various forms of unlawful debt collection,” the court said in its ruling. “Despite the considerable fear, anxiety and psychological and financial distress caused to the victims, the defendants have shown no sincere remorse.”

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY JUNG SI-NAE [[email protected]]