The story is about civil servant Baek Sung-il and his team who collect taxes from habitual tax evaders as well as delinquent taxpayers in cooperation with the fraudster Yang Jeong-do.[7]
Origin of title
Squad 38 is motivated and received advice from "38 Tax Collection Division" (aka 38기동대: Task force 38) in Seoul Metropolitan Government.
모든 국민은 법률이 정하는 바에 의하여 납세의 의무를 진다. All citizens shall have the duty to pay taxes under the conditions as prescribed by Act.
The Korean title "사기동대 (sagidongdae)" is the combination of the words 사기 (sagi: fraud) and 기동대 (gidongdae: task force). In the logo of this series, letter of 사기 is written in blue and underlined to emphasize.
The motto of the drama, "끝까지 사기쳐서 반드시 징수한다" (Swindle to the end, must be collected.) is parody of, the motto of 38 Tax Collection Division, "끝까지 추적하여 반드시 징수한다" (Trace to the end, must be collected.)
Cast
Main cast
Ma Dong-seok as Baek Sung-il/Park Woong-cheol – manager of Tax Collection Bureau's section 3[9]
Seo In-guk as Yang Jeong-do – professional swindler
Choi Soo-young as Cheon Sung-hee – Tax Collection Bureau's officer
In the table above, the blue numbers represent the lowest ratings and the red numbers represent the highest ratings.
This series aired on a cable channel/pay TV which normally has a relatively smaller audience compared to free-to-air TV/public broadcasters (KBS, SBS, MBC and EBS).
The broadcasting rights to the series were sold to 11 countries, China, Cambodia, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand.[16][17]
