Two illegal loan sharks sentenced to prison for lending high interest rates of up to 40,000% per year to 551 people

(Busan = Yonhap News) Reporter Cha Geun-ho = Two illegal loan sharks in their 30s who lent money to more than 500 people and collected interest far exceeding the legal maximum interest rate were sentenced to prison.

On the 11th, Busan District Court criminal judge Lee Jun-min announced that Mr. A, a man in his 30s, was sentenced to 1 year and 2 months in prison, and Mr. B, a man in his 30s, was sentenced to 1 year in prison for violating the Act on Registration of Loan Business and Protection of Financial Users.

Judge Lee also ordered them to collect 68.22 million won each.

According to the ruling, they were indicted on charges of lending 857.5 million won to 551 people on a total of 1,343 occasions from January 2024 to December 2025 without registering with the competent government office, and then receiving 673.46 million won in interest.

The annual interest rate they applied ranged from a minimum of 76% to a maximum of 40,150%.

In fact, he lent 1.3 million won to a debtor and received 2 million won back including principal and interest four days later. Converting this to an annual interest rate, it is equivalent to 3,930%.

They operated in a way that if the loan principal amount was 100,000 won, they received about 80,000 won in interest, and if the repayment deadline was exceeded, they collected overdue interest of 30,000 to 50,000 won per day.

In addition, during the loan process, contact information of the debtor's family, acquaintances, and co-workers, as well as facial and resident registration photos, were obtained and used for debt collection.

Judge Lee stated the reason for the sentencing, saying, "The scale of the crime was significant, approximately 1.5 billion won, so the guilt is heavy and the damage to the debtors has not been recovered." "Considering that Mr. A committed the crime during the probation period of a prison sentence for another crime, I am sentencing him to prison."