Man arrested for sexual exploitation, luring victims with promise of doctored images

South Korean police said Friday they have arrested one of the main culprits of a group that sexually exploited 342 people, luring them with offers to make fake photos of their acquaintances and then using the deal to threaten them.

Officials of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency's cybercrime unit said the 21-year-old suspect was arrested on Oct. 19, and his case has been forwarded to the prosecution with physical detention. He is accused of organizing a criminal group, threat and coercion, and creating sexually exploitative materials.

The suspect and two other leaders of the criminal group are believed to have run the operation via social media between July 2020 and March 2021. They approached victims by offering to create doctored photos of anyone they may wish to target.

Once the victims requested such images, the suspects blackmailed the victims by threatening to expose their deal. They forced sexually exploitative actions against the victims, and even recruited some of them into the crime ring.

The group called itself "Chamgoyukdan," which directly translates as "group for true education." The members of the group each had specific roles such as finding the victims, luring them and making sexually exploitative content.

It was found that the three leaders of the group once worked as middle management for sites like "Digital Prison," which claimed to be vigilantes who released the personal information of criminal suspects. The website ran on anonymous tips, leading to the release of information about innocent people on several occasions.

Of the two other co-leaders of the group, one was caught by police officials in South Chungcheong Province in August 2021, along with 62 other members of the crime ring. He was sentenced to 13 years and six months in prison in February 2023.

The Seoul police tracked down the suspect in the recent arrest while investigating another online sexual exploitation case by the same group from November 2023.

The third leader of the crime ring remains at large.

The recent arrest was part of the special crackdown by the National Police Agency on cyber sex crimes, conducted between Nov. 1, 2024, and Oct. 31. Officials caught 418 suspects and placed 28 of them under arrest.

Of the suspects, 35.4 percent are accused of making sexually exploitative content of children and teenagers, 25.6 percent are accused of illegally filming people without consent, and 23.7 percent are accused of creating fake video content.