Every so often I look at the public information campaigns intended to raise awareness of scams around the world. Some use comedy to make their point, such as the outcome of a legendary Chinese battle being changed by a deceptive phone call, or a Ghanaian video about mobile money fraud that references international soccer star Sadio Mané. However, South Korea has taken awareness campaigns to the next level by combining Tetris, martial arts and song. Korean actor and Taekwondo champion Na Tae‑ju fronts a series of videos about vishing scams where he alternates between pulling a sombre face as he comforts victims, warbling passionately about how to stop fraud, and kicking crime into oblivion.
The following video is about self-isolation scams, an especially distressing scam where criminals impersonate the police and persuade victims to lock themselves in a hotel room and avoid contact with any friends or family who may realize they are being lied to. A rough translation of the lyrics is given below, but you will get the gist even if you do not understand Korean, not least when Na wails the word ‘phishing’ at the top of his lungs.
A sudden phone call: This is Chief Rice about a financial crime.
My heart was pounding so hard I couldn’t think straight.
I am afraid and alone in the isolated room.
Cut off contact and send me money! You must not leave!
Phishing, phishing, voice phishing: We can’t allow it anymore.
Don’t forget to be suspicious. It’s voice phishing!
Check for phishing scams and hang up immediately.
This is a common voice phishing tactic that isolates the victim.
These consumer awareness videos, produced by South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service, also feature Na singing about messages that tell victims to download apps and calls from scammers impersonating the state prosecutor’s office and instructing the victim to download fake court documents. The video warning against scam apps being used to steal personal data is worth watching just for the amazingly high kicks that Na performs at the end. The upbeat pop music and the mobile-friendly format of these videos suggests they are aimed at young people, but Na also appears in wide-format videos about the same topics (see here, here and here) that have sombre music and no singing. But then Na still uses his martial arts skills to battle Tetris blocks at the conclusion of each of the serious videos too.
South Korea’s cultural influence has gone from Gangnam Style to the global mainstream thanks to the success of crossover musicians like Rosé, who scored a huge worldwide hit with “APT”. The return of boy band BTS after completing their military service was recently described as ‘the comeback of the century’ by CNN. South Korean artists have also garnered acclaim in the film and television industry, thanks to global box office successes including Oldboy and Train to Busan, and the smash hit audience figures for Squid Game on Netflix. Parasite became the first foreign language film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, a decision that prompted mockery from US President Donald Trump. While Trump and I might find some aspects of Korean culture to be unfamiliar, these scam awareness videos should also serve as a reminder of the foolishness that often occurs when people make generalizations about how people will behave across the whole world.
Both the style and the content of these videos demonstrate how crime and the response to crime will differ from place to place. Generalizations about crime worldwide, and platitudes about how to mitigate that crime, often reveal more about the ignorance of the speaker than the truth contained in police statistics or the methods used by different national authorities. Networks are the same everywhere; people are not. Self-isolation scams appear to be an unusually severe issue in South Korea, perhaps because Koreans have more respect for authority than the populations of other countries. If maintaining trust in institutions necessitates a mixture of high kicks and high notes, then who am I to argue otherwise?
I spoke with Koreans at the recent Global Fraud Summit in Vienna, and while the audience was repeatedly told about the need for global cooperation, there were too many native English speakers on the agenda, relative to those from South Korea and other Asian countries that have been innovative in the fight against scams. Global cooperation will be difficult to achieve if it is not designed to satisfy everybody’s needs and priorities. Just because a certain kind of scam is becoming more common in one part of the world does not mean the same trend will be seen elsewhere. Punching Tetris blocks may not be an appropriate way to draw attention to crime in other countries, but South Korea is taking the lead with fighting scams on many levels. If singing about fraud proves effective then let the music play on.
