President Lee Jae Myung (second from left) on Jan. 26 receives a briefing on a task force for responding to transnational crimes at the annex of Government Complex-Seoul in the capital's Jongno-gu District. (Cheong Wa Dae)

By Xu Aiying

President Lee Jae Myung on Jan. 26 visited the office of a special task force for transnational crimes at an annex of Government Complex-Seoul in the capital's Jongno-gu District, urging active responses to online scams originating overseas.

He received a report saying the number of reported scams such as voice phishing and no-show fraud rapidly fell after the task force's launch, Cheong Wa Dae spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said.

"Various scams are destroying people's lives and getting more sophisticated," President Lee said there. "We will cooperate with media in Southeast Asia to actively promote how messing with Koreans will lead to ruin."

Hearing of the recent arrests in Cambodia and the largest-scale repatriation process in Korea's history, he stressed the importance of systematic cooperation between public bodies.

A pan-government control tower launched under orders from President Lee to respond to transnational crimes such as narcotics trafficking, scams, online gambling and digital sex crimes, the task force has the participation of 10 agencies including the National Intelligence Service, Supreme Prosecutors' Office and Korean National Police Agency.

The Jan. 23 repatriation of 73 Korean criminal suspects from Cambodia was the largest operation of its kind in Korean history.

xuaiy@korea.kr