The Financial Supervisory Service's special judicial police for capital markets uncovered a front-running scheme that used so-called stock highlight articles and handed seven suspects to prosecutors. A working reporter is accused of using authority to publish articles and the impact of coverage to buy shares before articles ran and sell immediately after publication to obtain illicit gains.

The FSS special investigators said on June 18 it uncovered two cases of illegal trading involving a working reporter using stock highlight articles and referred a total of seven people to prosecutors on suspicion of violating the Capital Markets Act. Two suspects, including certified public accountant A (A) alleged to be the ringleader of a stock manipulation group and suspect B (B) in a case involving only a working reporter, were arrested on June 9.

The investigation began after the FSS investigation bureau in February 2025 detected signs of front-running by current and former reporters using stock highlight articles. The FSS special investigators then carried out search and seizure operations at about 50 locations including media companies and residences and conducted digital forensic analysis.

In the stock manipulation group case, ringleader A was found to have formed a new stock manipulation group around October 2020 with three reporters who were working at the time. They are accused of drafting stock highlight articles mainly about small and mid-cap stocks with low trading volume or high price volatility, then asking working reporters or reporters they had paid to distribute them.

According to the FSS special investigators, they bought the shares in advance using accounts in their own names and borrowed-name accounts before the articles were published. After the articles were displayed on securities firms' HTS platforms and portal news sites and buying interest flowed in, they sold their holdings to realise profits, it found.

Six suspects in the case are accused of obtaining illicit gains of 8.56 billion won by using about 1,800 articles over about 4 years and 8 months from Oct. 21, 2020 to June 25, 2025.

In the case involving only a working reporter, suspect B is accused of using authority to publish articles to release stock highlight articles directly at a desired time from around October 2022. B bought shares first and published an article on average 1 minute later, and began selling on average 3 minutes after publication, investigators found.

B is accused of obtaining illicit gains of 750,000,000 won by using about 300 articles over about 1 year and 10 months from Oct. 19, 2022 to July 30, 2024.

The FSS urged caution, saying that investing simply because article titles mention terms such as "stock highlight", "related theme stocks" or "surging stocks" could make investors targets of investment fraud, price manipulation and front-running groups.

An FSS official said, "Investors should closely verify the reasonableness of article content, including the target company's disclosures, financial status and factors behind share price rises, before making careful investment decisions."