Open Decision Ledger · Criminal law
Meaning of ‘other unlawful acts’ and the intent needed for aiding
Supreme Court, Oct. 27, 2022, 2021Do1965 (judgment)
No holding summary · checked against points at issue. The official text publishes no summary of the holding for this decision. The quotation and factors in this record are copied verbatim from the points at issue; the evidence for each axis is taken from the points at issue, the order and the reasons.
Case name: 금융실명거래및비밀보장에관한법률위반방조
Official text on the National Law Information Center
Question
Under Articles 3(3) and 6(1) of the former Act on Financial Transactions and the Maintenance of Secrecy, what counts as the ‘other unlawful acts’ that make a financial transaction in another person's real name unlawful, and what must an accessory know of the principal's purpose to be guilty of aiding that offence?
Holding
‘Other unlawful acts’ is not any conduct that sidesteps a prohibition by an indirect route. It must reach a level comparable to the conduct the provision enumerates, such as concealing illegal property, money laundering, terrorism financing and evasion of compulsory execution, which are themselves subject to criminal punishment, and this is judged in full view of the purpose of the Act. For aiding an offence under Article 6(1), which requires a purpose to commit an unlawful act as an element beyond the objective elements, the accessory must know that the principal conducts the transaction in another's name for that purpose, but need not know the concrete content of the unlawful act.
Points at issue, verbatim
위 규정에서 말하는 ‘그 밖의 탈법행위’의 의미 및 이에 해당하는지 판단하는 기준
Unofficial English translation
The meaning of "other acts of evasion" as used in the foregoing provisions and the criteria for determining whether conduct falls within that term
Disposition
Reversed and remanded Stated in the decision
원심판결을 파기하고, 사건을 부산지방법원에 환송한다.
Unofficial English translation
The judgment of the court below is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Busan District Court.
Form of the test
Elements stated Stated in the decision
이 사건 규정에서 말하는 ‘그 밖의 탈법행위’라 함은, 단순히 우회적인 방법으로 금지규정의 제한을 피하려는 행위 전반을 의미하는 것이 아니라, 이 사건 규정에 구체적으로 열거된 불법재산의 은닉, 자금세탁, 공중협박자금조달 및 강제집행의 면탈과 같이 형사처벌의 대상이 되는 행위에 준하는 정도에 이르러야 하고
Unofficial English translation
"Other acts of evasion" as used in the provisions at issue does not mean all conduct that seeks to avoid the restrictions of a prohibitory provision by merely indirect methods, but must reach a degree comparable to conduct subject to criminal punishment, such as the concealment of illegal proceeds, money laundering, the financing of terrorist acts, and the evasion of compulsory execution, which are specifically enumerated in the provisions at issue, and
Factors
- 구 금융실명거래 및 비밀보장에 관한 법률 제3조 제3항, 제6조 제1항에서 불법·탈법적 목적에 의한 타인 실명의 금융거래를 처벌하는 취지
- 방조범의 성립에 필요한 고의의 내용
- 목적범인 구 금융실명거래 및 비밀보장에 관한 법률 제6조 제1항 위반죄의 방조범 성립에 필요한 고의의 내용
Unofficial English translation
• The rationale of Article 3 paragraph (3) and Article 6 paragraph (1) of the former Act on Real Name Financial Transactions and Confidentiality for punishing financial transactions in the name of another person for illegal or evasive purposes
• The content of the intent necessary for the establishment of aiding and abetting
• The content of the intent necessary for the establishment of aiding and abetting the violation of Article 6 paragraph (1) of the former Act on Real Name Financial Transactions and Confidentiality, which is a specific intent offense
Relation to precedent
Follows earlier decisions Stated in the decision
대법원 2017. 12. 22. 선고 2017도12346 판결(공2018상, 379)
Unofficial English translation
Supreme Court Decision 2017Do12346 decided December 22, 2017 (Gong 2018 Sang, 379)
Decisions referred to
[1] 대법원 2017. 12. 22. 선고 2017도12346 판결(공2018상, 379) / [2] 대법원 2005. 4. 29. 선고 2003도6056 판결(공2005상, 887), 대법원 2022. 6. 30. 선고 2020도7866 판결(공2022하, 1542)
Burden of proof
Not addressed Not in the decision
Open question and revisit condition
How far must conduct that avoids customs duty and value-added tax go before it is ‘comparable to’ the enumerated unlawful acts, where no charge under Article 270 of the Customs Act is brought?
A later decision setting the boundary of ‘other unlawful acts’ beyond money laundering, or a charge or judgment under Article 270 of the Customs Act on the same facts, would require this entry to be read again. So would any amendment of Article 3(3) or Article 6(1) of the Act or of the money-laundering definition in Article 2(4) of the Act on Reporting and Use of Specific Financial Transaction Information.
Cross-family AI independent reading & axis check
7 of 8 axes matched GPT-6 Astra (OpenAI, codex CLI) · 2026-10-25
A reader from another model family (GPT-6 Astra), given the official text but not the primary reading, agreed on 7 of the 8 axes; the readings differed on axis 8 (open question and revisit condition).
Axis 8 (Open question and revisit condition): Primary “How far must conduct that avoids customs duty and value-added tax go before it is ‘comparable to’ the enumerated unlawful acts, where no charge under Article 270 of the Customs Act is brought?” vs Independent “What additional circumstances would establish the required intent where an account holder suspects a tax issue but does not recognize a criminally unlawful circumvention purpose?”
The primary reading asks how far customs and VAT evasion must go to be comparable to enumerated unlawful acts. The independent reading asks what extra circumstances establish intent when only a tax suspicion exists.
위 규정에서 말하는 ‘그 밖의 탈법행위’의 의미 및 이에 해당하는지 판단하는 기준Raw responses and comparison record: Protocol · Blind readings (JSONL) · Axis comparison (JSONL) · SHA-256 (JSON)
Lower-court contrast & scope of application
Lower-court reading vs. Supreme Court holding
Lower-court context: The Busan District Court, in its judgment of 22 January 2021 (2020No1745), acquitted the defendant. It held that buying overseas luxury goods through the defendant's personal account instead of the company's, in order to cut customs duty and value-added tax, was not clearly an act evading some mandatory rule, and that the need to block illegal money transactions conducted through financial transactions was not so manifest that the act could be called an unlawful act. On the evidence the prosecution had submitted, it found insufficient even a partial awareness or foresight that the unknown person was transacting in the defendant's name for that purpose while the defendant made it easier.
Supreme Court standard: The Supreme Court held that receiving the proceeds of telephone voice phishing in another person's account is the very means of concealing the proceeds and hiding the offender's identity, so it is a transaction in another's real name for the purpose of an unlawful act within the provision. It also held that falsifying the subject of an import to avoid customs levied on a company can amount to disguising the subject of an import for the purpose of the offence under Article 270 of the Customs Act, a form of money laundering, so using a financial account for that is covered as well. Since the defendant knew that the unknown person was disguising the subject of an import covered by the money-laundering provision and yet provided the account details, an accessory offence was made out, and the acquittal was reversed for misreading the meaning of money laundering and the law on the principal's intent for an accessory.
Distinguishing conditions
- A case in which the account holder actually bought foreign goods under their own personal clearance number and resold them to the principal, so that a real trade took place.
- Conduct that merely takes an indirect route around a restriction, without reaching a level comparable to conduct that is itself criminally punishable.
- A case in which the accessory did not recognise that the principal's import transaction disguised the subject of an import within the money-laundering provision, since the Court relied on that recognition.
Record verification notes
Set the account records against the messages and statements the person gave to the police, since the Court relied on the defendant's own words that they had suspected unlawfulness and on the absence of any real purchase. Trace where the funds went, here KRW 6 million remitted to a Chinese account and KRW 200,000 moved to another account, and check whether the incoming KRW 10 million was the proceeds of voice phishing. Confirm also that the pre-24 March 2020 version of the Act applies to the transaction date.
From the official text
Points at issue
[1] 구 금융실명거래 및 비밀보장에 관한 법률 제3조 제3항, 제6조 제1항에서 불법·탈법적 목적에 의한 타인 실명의 금융거래를 처벌하는 취지 / 위 규정에서 말하는 ‘그 밖의 탈법행위’의 의미 및 이에 해당하는지 판단하는 기준 [2] 방조범의 성립에 필요한 고의의 내용 / 목적범인 구 금융실명거래 및 비밀보장에 관한 법률 제6조 제1항 위반죄의 방조범 성립에 필요한 고의의 내용
Unofficial English translation
[1] The rationale of Article 3 paragraph (3) and Article 6 paragraph (1) of the former Act on Real Name Financial Transactions and Confidentiality for punishing financial transactions in the name of another person for illegal or evasive purposes / The meaning of "other acts of evasion" as used in the foregoing provisions and the criteria for determining whether conduct falls within that term [2] The content of the intent necessary for the establishment of aiding and abetting / The content of the intent necessary for the establishment of aiding and abetting the violation of Article 6 paragraph (1) of the former Act on Real Name Financial Transactions and Confidentiality, which is a specific intent offense
Summary of the holding
The official text publishes no summary of the holding for this decision. The quotation and factors in this record are copied verbatim from the points at issue; the evidence for each axis is taken from the points at issue, the order and the reasons.
Order
원심판결을 파기하고, 사건을 부산지방법원에 환송한다.
Unofficial English translation
The judgment of the court below is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Busan District Court.
Provisions referred to
[1] 구 금융실명거래 및 비밀보장에 관한 법률(2020. 3. 24. 법률 제17113호로 개정되기 전의 것) 제1조, 제2조 제3호, 제4호, 제3조 제3항, 제6조 제1항, 구 특정 금융거래정보의 보고 및 이용 등에 관한 법률(2020. 3. 24. 법률 제17113호로 개정되기 전의 것) 제2조 제3호(현행 제2조 제4호 참조), 제4호(현행 제2조 제5호 참조), 제5호(현행 제2조 제6호 참조) [2] 형법 제32조, 구 금융실명거래 및 비밀보장에 관한 법률(2020. 3. 24. 법률 제17113호로 개정되기 전의 것) 제3조 제3항, 제6조 제1항
Read 2026-10-25 · Cross-read 2026-10-25. All quotes matched against the official text. The Chinese-character placeholders the court used for anonymised parties are given in their Korean readings, and parenthetical Chinese-character glosses are omitted.
Every entry is published only after all quotes have been matched character by character against the official text, and audited by an independent second reading from a different model family across all eight axes. Both agreed axes and text-grounded interpretive divergences are recorded openly. The ledger is a research record, not an assessment of the court or advice on any matter.
Back to the ledger