Prosecutors mulling formal charge on chatroom sex abuse suspect
Print Edition
South Korean prosecutors began yesterday reviewing whether to formally charge a man arrested last week on allegations he operated secret chatrooms where he posted sexually abusive videos of blackmailed women in return for cryptocurrency payments.
The allegations have triggered intense public uproar and soul-searching over a culture that critics say is lenient about sexual violence and continuously fails the victims, prompting President Moon Jae-in to call for thorough investigation and stern punishment for operators of such chatrooms and their users.
Wearing a neck brace and handcuffed to his waist, the suspect, Cho Ju-bin, was paraded before journalists at the Jongno Police Station in Seoul before officers drove him to the prosecutors鈥 office.
Police officers created a perimeter around the station鈥檚 gate to block off angry protesters, who waved signs that read 鈥淔rom chatroom to prison鈥 and 鈥淧unish all users鈥 and yelled 鈥淕ive him the highest penalty!鈥
鈥淭hank you for stopping the life of a devil (I) couldn鈥檛 stop,鈥 Cho said in front of a barrage of camera flashes.
Before sending Cho鈥檚 case to prosecutors, police said they had arrested 18 people since September while investigating private chatrooms on the Telegram messaging app, where users paid in cryptocurrency to view videos of a sexual nature that involved dozens of allegedly blackmailed women and girls.
Under the nickname 鈥淭he Doctor,鈥 Cho allegedly operated one of the biggest chatrooms with as many as 10,000 users, and police are investigating whether he operated others. He is suspected of using private information he secured from workers at local government offices to blackmail victims lured through fake job ads, forcing them to create sexually explicit videos that sometimes involved rape and violence.
Police, who seized about 130 million won (US$105,000) in cash from Cho鈥檚 house following his arrest last week, said his customers could have paid as much as 1.5 million won in cryptocurrency to watch the videos.
While police usually don鈥檛 release the identities of criminal suspects out of respect for their rights, they made an exception with Cho by revealing his full name and displaying him in front of the media, saying that his alleged crime was particularly heinous.
Police are chasing other chatroom operators, including a Telegram user who used the nickname 鈥淕odGod.鈥
Amid heightened public attention, prosecutors launched an unusually large 21-member taskforce to investigate Cho鈥檚 case and other chatrooms. They have as many as 20 days to investigate Cho before indicting him in court, an official at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors鈥 Office said. Police and prosecution officials said it is not clear how much chatroom operators profited from the videos. Civic activists have speculated the chatrooms could have attracted as many as 260,000 paid users, including overlapping members in different chatrooms.
South Korea for years has struggled to deal with what the government describes as 鈥渄igital sex crimes,鈥 which aside from the abusive chatrooms also include the spread of intimate photos and videos taken by devices hidden in public spaces and buildings, an issue that triggered massive protests in 2018.
On Monday, Moon called for a thorough investigation and denounced the alleged crimes as a 鈥渃ruel act destroying a human鈥檚 life.鈥
The Justice Ministry issued an apology over what it called 鈥渁 years-long failure by the legal system to properly respond to such crimes鈥 and said it would 鈥渆mploy all possible efforts鈥 to track down the operators and users, ensure stern punishment and reclaim any financial gains from the videos.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 娌狪CP璇侊細娌狪CP澶05050403鍙-1
- |
- 浜掕仈缃戞柊闂讳俊鎭湇鍔¤鍙瘉锛31120180004
- |
- 缃戠粶瑙嗗惉璁稿彲璇侊細0909346
- |
- 骞挎挱鐢佃鑺傜洰鍒朵綔璁稿彲璇侊細娌瓧绗354鍙
- |
- 澧炲肩數淇′笟鍔＄粡钀ヨ鍙瘉锛氭勃B2-20120012
Copyright 漏 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
