통신사기피해환급법 제15조의2 제1항에서 말하는 ‘정보 또는 명령의 입력행위’의 의미

The Special Act on Refund of Amount of Damage Caused by Telecommunications Bank Fraud (amended by Act No. 12384, Jan. 28, 2014; hereinafter “Special Act”) inserted a new clause on “crimes involving telecommunications-based financial fraud” under Article 15-2 (Penal Provision) in order to punish variant forms of voice phishing which are difficult to punish under the Criminal Act, as well as conventional types of voice phishing attacks which were punishable under the Criminal Act as crimes involving fraud or fraud using computers, etc. However, rather than prescribing that “a person who committed an act of telecommunications-based financial fraud” as being subject to punishment, Article 15-2(1) of the Special Act stipulates that “[any person] causing other persons to input data or instructions into computers or other information processing units” (subparag. 1) or “[any person] inputting data or instructions into computers or other information processing units by using other persons’ data he/she acquires”(subparag. 2) shall be punished for telecommunications-based financial fraud. This, in turn, has caused confusion as to interpreting the said provision in practice. As to the subject case, the Majority Opinion expressly stated that “The act of ‘inputting information or instruction for the purpose of telecommunications-based financial fraud’ which is subject to punishment under Article 15-2(1) of the Special Act (hereinafter “this case’s penal provision”) means ‘inputting information or instruction for the purpose of remitting/transferring money into an account used for fraud by committing a telecommunications-based fraud against another person.’ Therefore, in this case, the act of inputting information, etc. on the holder of the account used for fraud into an information processing unit for the purpose of withdrawing cash from the said account after the victim’s money was remitted/transferred to the account used for fraud does not constitute an element of crime prescribed under this case’s penal provision.” The subject case is significant in that it was the Supreme Court’s first declaration as to interpreting the meaning of the phrase “inputting information or instruction” prescribed under the aforementioned Article 15-2(1), based on not only the said Article’s language in itself but also the systematic relationship with the provision as to the definition of telecommunications-based financial fraud (Article 2 subparag. 2) and logical context.