Open Decision Ledger · Criminal law
Telecom financial fraud and Penal Code fraud as independent offences
Supreme Court, Aug. 14, 2025, 2025Do6811 (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: 전기통신금융사기피해방지및피해금환급에관한특별법위반·사기
Official text on the National Law Information Center
Question
Is the telecom financial fraud offence under the Special Act on Prevention of Telecom Financial Fraud and Refund of Damages a special law in relation to the offence of fraud under the Penal Code, and how are the two offences related as to concurrence when one act satisfies the constitutive elements of both?
Holding
It is not. The telecom financial fraud offence differs from fraud in legislative purpose and in some concrete elements, so it is not the case that it contains all the elements of fraud and additionally another element, and the two offences are independent constitutive elements standing in ideal concurrence when one act satisfies both. The court below misapprehended the law on concurrence by acquitting on the fraud count, but the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal because that error had no effect on the judgment, the range of punishment being identical and no real difference in sentencing conditions or in the sentence imposed appearing.
Points at issue, verbatim
전기통신금융사기 피해 방지 및 피해금 환급에 관한 특별법상 전기통신금융사기죄의 규정이 형법상 사기죄의 규정에 대하여 특별법의 관계에 있는지 여부(소극) / 1개의 행위가 전기통신금융사기죄와 사기죄의 각 구성요건을 충족하는 경우의 죄수관계(=상상적 경합범)
Unofficial English translation
Whether the provisions on the offense of telecommunications financial fraud under the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Prevention of Victimization by Telecommunications Financial Fraud and the Refund of Amounts Lost Thereto stand in the relationship of a special law to the provisions on the offense of fraud under the Criminal Act (negative) / The relationship of concurrence of offenses where a single act satisfies the constituent elements of each of the offense of telecommunications financial fraud and the offense of fraud (=imaginary concurrence)
Disposition
Dismissed Stated in the decision
상고를 기각한다.
Unofficial English translation
The appeal is dismissed.
Form of the test
Elements stated Stated in the decision
전기통신금융사기죄 구성요건이 사기죄 구성요건의 모든 요소를 포함하는 외에 다른 요소를 구비하는 경우에 해당하지 않는다
Unofficial English translation
do not fall under a case where the constituent elements of the offense of telecommunications financial fraud include all elements of the constituent elements of the offense of fraud and, in addition, comprise other elements
Factors
- 전기통신금융사기 피해 방지 및 피해금 환급에 관한 특별법상 전기통신금융사기죄의 규정이 형법상 사기죄의 규정에 대하여 특별법의 관계에 있는지 여부(소극)
- 1개의 행위가 전기통신금융사기죄와 사기죄의 각 구성요건을 충족하는 경우의 죄수관계(=상상적 경합범)
Unofficial English translation
• Whether the provisions on the offense of telecommunications financial fraud under the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Prevention of Victimization by Telecommunications Financial Fraud and the Refund of Amounts Lost Thereto stand in the relationship of a special law to the provisions on the offense of fraud under the Criminal Act (negative)
• The relationship of concurrence of offenses where a single act satisfies the constituent elements of each of the offense of telecommunications financial fraud and the offense of fraud (=imaginary concurrence)
Relation to precedent
Follows earlier decisions Stated in the decision
대법원 2025. 7. 3. 선고 2025도4969 판결(공2025하, 1459)
Unofficial English translation
Supreme Court Decision 2025Do4969 decided July 3, 2025 (Gong 2025 Ha, 1459)
Decisions referred to
[1] 대법원 2025. 7. 3. 선고 2025도4969 판결(공2025하, 1459)
Burden of proof
Not addressed Not in the decision
Open question and revisit condition
Where the statutory penalty range for the telecom financial fraud offence and that for fraud diverge, would the misapprehension of the concurrence rule still have no effect on the judgment?
Any amendment to Article 15-2 of the Special Act on Prevention of Telecom Financial Fraud and Refund of Damages or to Article 347 of the Penal Code that changes the two statutory penalty ranges would require this harmless-error reading to be made again. A later decision departing from Supreme Court Decision 2025Do4969 on the relation between the two offences would also require a fresh reading.
Cross-family AI independent reading & axis check
8 of 8 axes matched GPT-6 Astra (OpenAI, codex CLI) · 2026-10-24
A reader from another model family (GPT-6 Astra), given the official text but not the primary reading, agreed on all 8 axes.
Raw 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 Daejeon High Court, in its judgment of 18 April 2025 (2025No54), held that the telecom financial fraud offence stands to the offence of fraud in a special relation within overlapping provisions of law, so fraud is not established separately from it, and acquitted the defendant on the fraud count of the indictment on that ground.
Supreme Court standard: The Supreme Court held that the two offences differ in legislative purpose and in some concrete elements, so the special law relation cannot be accepted and one act satisfying both constitutes ideal concurrence. It found that the court below had misapprehended the law on concurrence, but also that the error could not have affected the judgment, because the range of punishment was identical and there appeared to be no real difference in sentencing conditions or in the sentence imposed. The Justices unanimously dismissed the appeal.
Distinguishing conditions
- An act that satisfies the constitutive elements of only one of the two offences, where the concurrence question does not arise.
- A case in which the statutory range of punishment for the two offences differs, so that treating them as independent offences in ideal concurrence would affect the judgment.
- A case in which the two offences rest on different acts, so that they are separate offences rather than one act satisfying both constitutive elements.
Record verification notes
Set the statutory penalty provisions referred to in the file, here Article 15-2(1) and (2) of the Special Act and Article 347 of the Penal Code, against each other, because the harmless-error conclusion rests on the range of punishment being the same and no real difference in sentencing conditions. Then confirm that the two charges arise from the same single act, since the ruling grounds ideal concurrence on one act satisfying both constitutive elements. The ruling also rests on the relation stated in Supreme Court Decision 2025Do4969, and on Supreme Court Decision 80Do384 on whether an error affects the judgment, so read those decisions alongside this one.
From the official text
Points at issue
[1] 전기통신금융사기 피해 방지 및 피해금 환급에 관한 특별법상 전기통신금융사기죄의 규정이 형법상 사기죄의 규정에 대하여 특별법의 관계에 있는지 여부(소극) / 1개의 행위가 전기통신금융사기죄와 사기죄의 각 구성요건을 충족하는 경우의 죄수관계(=상상적 경합범)
Unofficial English translation
[1] Whether the provisions on the offense of telecommunications financial fraud under the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Prevention of Victimization by Telecommunications Financial Fraud and the Refund of Amounts Lost Thereto stand in the relationship of a special law to the provisions on the offense of fraud under the Criminal Act (negative) / The relationship of concurrence of offenses where a single act satisfies the constituent elements of each of the offense of telecommunications financial fraud and the offense of fraud (=imaginary concurrence)
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
상고를 기각한다.
Unofficial English translation
The appeal is dismissed.
Provisions referred to
[1] 전기통신금융사기 피해 방지 및 피해금 환급에 관한 특별법 제1조, 제2조 제2호, 제4조, 제9조, 제10조, 제15조의2 제1항, 제2항, 형법 제37조, 제40조, 제347조, 제352조
Read 2026-10-24 · Cross-read 2026-10-24. 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