The Bank Account Was Opened Before the Wedding

Identity theft brings to mind a stranger prising information out of you.

What broadcaster Jung Ga-eun has described does not fit that picture. Roughly 660 transactions worth about 13.2 billion won, all of it running through an account in her name — and the person who opened that account was her husband.

But the first date to look at here is neither the marriage nor the divorce. The account predates the wedding.

At a glance

Only one row in that table sits out of order, and it is the first. The account exists before the marriage does.

Reporting adds that he had a prior fraud conviction involving accounts in other people's names, and did not disclose it when they married. No court has ruled on this case, so everything here reflects the complaint and Jung's own public account of it.

That ordering changes the explanation

There is a familiar way of explaining identity theft by someone close to you. The documents and ID sit in the same home, the person already knows the details used for verification, "let me handle it for you" raises no suspicion, and post and alerts arrive at the same address, so discovery is slow.

None of that is wrong. In this case, though, it is only half right.

All four points assume a relationship forms first and trust accumulates inside it. Here the account came before the marriage. Access was not opened because trust had grown — the access was already open, and with a prior conviction sitting in front of it, the sequence may well run the other way.

The distinction matters practically because it changes the defence. If trust is the cause, the prescription is "never hand over documents, not even to family". If the name came before the relationship, the prescription points elsewhere — periodically checking what has been opened under your own name.

What 660 tells you is not the amount but the duration

The 13.2 billion figure lands immediately, but the count is the number that describes this case better.

The alleged period runs from December 2015 to May 2018, about 29 months. Divide 660 by 29 and you get roughly twenty-two a month.

Her name was used more than twenty times a month for two and a half years.

This was not an isolated incident but an operation running as routine, and most of that stretch sits inside the marriage. And what the reporting describes being used was not only the account number — her public profile was reportedly used alongside it.

The name served as a tool in two layers, then. One as the account money passed through, the other as the credibility that reassured whoever was on the other side.

Everything hangs on one number, so one breach opens all of it

This is where a distinctly Korean structure enters. Korea runs on real names, and administration and finance alike are anchored to a single identifier: the resident registration number. Opening an account, signing up for a mobile line, taking a loan, signing a property contract, registering a business — all of it turns on that number.

The design has clear strengths. Identity checks are fast, transactions are traceable, and laundering through anonymous accounts is difficult. A good part of why banking in Korea finishes faster than elsewhere sits right here.

But the same design carries a price. Hang everything on one thing and when that one thing opens, all of it opens together.

The structure has been adjusted over time. From 5 October 2020, newly issued resident registration numbers randomise the final six digits, leaving only the single digit that denotes sex. Those positions previously encoded place of birth, which made numbers guessable. The change applies only to newly issued numbers, so most people living in Korea today still carry one under the old scheme.

Some of it is walled off by statute. Article 3(3) of the Act on Real Name Financial Transactions and Confidentiality prohibits conducting financial transactions under another person's real name for the purpose of evading the law, and Article 6 sets the penalty at up to five years' imprisonment or a fine of up to 50 million won.

One part of that provision matters especially to foreign residents. The penalty does not fall only on the person who takes a name — someone who knowingly lends theirs is caught by the same article. "Just open one account for me" is dangerous in Korea for reasons of criminal law, not friendship.

But what remains unfinished here is the procedure, not the loss

The story resurfaced in July 2026, yet the complaint was filed back in December 2019. Nearly seven years without a conclusion — and much of the reason is written into the statutes.

The charge is violation of the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes. Article 3 escalates the sentence by the amount obtained: three years or more for between 500 million and 5 billion won, and life imprisonment or five years or more above 5 billion. 13.2 billion falls in the upper band.

Heavier sentences carry longer limitation periods. Fraud in this band carries a statute of limitations of up to fifteen years.

Whether that clock is even running is the live question. Article 253(3) of the Criminal Procedure Act provides that the limitation period is suspended while an offender is abroad for the purpose of evading criminal punishment. Being overseas does not suspend it automatically — that purpose must be established — but once it is, time spent in flight does not count.

Fleeing buys no time, then. It also means the process goes nowhere, because a trial does not begin without a defendant. It is the same reason a complaint in Korea is not a punishment and each stage carries its own name.

What Jung described when she returned to the story in 2026 was not a verdict but a state of affairs: no contact, and only an exit record.

Two things you can check today

What an individual can actually use from this case comes down to one thing — seeing what stands open under your own name. Korea has two free services for exactly that.

That the two look at different places is the point. Check only the banking side and the phone lines remain; check only telecoms and the accounts do. Because a mobile number functions as the gate to almost every service in Korea, one unknown line left open means every verification code sent to it is in someone else's hands.

The alien registration number works the same way as the resident registration number, so all of this applies directly to anyone studying, working or running a business in Korea.

What this means where you are

Assigning a number to each person is hardly unusual.

Having a number and what that number ties together are separate questions. Korea's distinguishing feature is not the digit count but the breadth of what is tied to it — finance, telecoms, property and healthcare all turn on one axis. Which is why checking can be done in one pass, and why a breach arrives in one pass too.

So the thing to establish where you are narrows to a single question. Is there an official channel that shows every financial account and telecom line open in your name, in one place? If there is, use it the way Koreans use these two. If there is not, banks and carriers have to be checked separately.

Now that Vietnamese nationals make up the largest group of new arrivals in Korea, this is a task for the week after you land.

The question that stays open

A name can be recovered. Documents get corrected, accounts get closed, and Korea even has a procedure for changing the number itself.

What cannot be recovered in this case is not the name but the time. Across 660 transactions the owner of that account did not know what was happening under her own name, and seven years have passed since she found out. So how many things stand open under yours, and when did you last look?

Read next

• The app installed fine, but signing up did not — how a mobile number became the gate in Korea
• The translation "Kim Soo-hyun cleared" — what a complaint, a non-referral and an indictment each mean
• Vietnam is now the largest source of new arrivals in Korea — a map of the people this number gets issued to

Sources

• Hankyung — Jung Ga-eun files fraud complaint against ex-husband over 13.2bn won obtained using her name and profile
• Money Today — The ex-husband in the 13.2bn won fraud case has vanished, child support unpaid
• My Daily — Jung Ga-eun on the 13.2bn won identity fraud: "I only learned after the divorce"
• Korean Law Information Center — Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes
• CaseNote — Criminal Procedure Act Article 253 (suspension of the limitation period)
• KFTC — Integrated account information service
• KAIT — M-safer mobile subscription blocking service