Cheil turns scammers’ voices into wanted posters for Korean National Police Agency

Cheil and the Korean National Police Agency are launching the VOICE WANTED campaign to tackle the rapidly increasing scam call crimes in South Korea.

The amount of money lost to phone scams in South Korea has nearly doubled in just one year. The damage has become a serious problem with losses already exceeding 1 trillion won ($680 million) in 2025. As scam call tactics grow increasingly sophisticated, the number of victims continues to rise.

The Korean National Police Agency and Cheil focused on the perpetrator’s voice as a crucial clue in solving scam call crimes. Just as fingerprints are unique to each person, voices possess unique characteristics called vocal cords. Therefore, even if scam call methods change, perpetrators can be identified through their voiceprint.

The more voice samples of phone scammers are collected, the more the voice analysis model used to compare them against existing criminal voice files is strengthened, thereby increasing both the arrest rate and the probability of crime prevention. Accordingly, the Korean National Police Agency and Cheil have launched the public campaign VOICE WANTED to collect voice samples from phone scammers.

As the campaign’s centerpiece, Cheil created wanted posters for phone scammers’ voices. Using waveform graphs extracted from actual voiceprint samples of phone scammers, Cheil created a virtual composite sketch for the wanted poster. Scanning the poster’s QR code allows people to view real scam call cases and learn about the latest criminal tactics, while urging them to report scam call recordings to the police.

Police can identify suspects for investigation or arrest by extracting suspected fraudsters’ voices from reported call recordings and conducting voice analysis to compare them with previously secured voice files. This information can also be provided to telecommunications companies, enabling them to send warning alerts when suspected scam calls are made, thereby preventing such crimes.

Furthermore, as more voice samples from phone scammers are secured and the voice analysis model is strengthened, it is expected to be utilized to uncover scam call crime syndicates, and track down additional crimes committed by the perpetrators.

Acting Korean National Police Agency Commissioner Yoo Jae-sung stated, “The primary purpose of the VOICE WANTED campaign is to inform the public about increasingly sophisticated scam call tactics and to encourage public participation in reporting phone scam criminals’ voices for prevention.” He added, “We expect this campaign to help realize a safe community free from scam calls by engaging all citizens, transcending the boundaries between the private and public sectors.”

Cheil created the VOICE WANTED poster and a film to promote the campaign, along with videos demonstrating actual scam call tactics that can be viewed by scanning the QR code on the poster. 14,000 copies of the poster were produced and distributed nationwide to police stations, government offices, banks, ATMs, and telecommunications companies. The promotional film will run on the Korean National Police Agency’s website and social channels.