The head of the Telegram channel for sharing illegal sexual abuse materials known as “The Vigilantes” is arrested at his home in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, on Jan. 15. (courtesy of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency)
Police have nabbed the figure behind a sex abuse case perpetrated through Telegram that targeted at least 234 victims over more than four and a half years. The offenders began their criminal activities in earnest in May 2020, when South Korean society was shaken to the core by the news of the “Nth Room” online sexual abuse case and pondering how to respond to the shocking news on a societal level. Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency’s cybercrime investigation unit revealed Thursday that it had arrested the 33-year-old ringleader of the online sexual blackmail ring, which dubs itself “The Vigilantes,” which has been facilitating online sexual exploitation through Telegram since May 2020. Out of the other 13 members of the group, two have been sent to the prosecution service while 11 are being investigated by the police while being booked without detention. The members face up to 19 charges including the organization of criminal groups, punishable by the Criminal Act, and blackmail through video footage, punishable by laws pertaining to rape and punishment of sexual crimes. The prolonged time frame of four years and eight months means that hundreds of victims were driven to despair through a variety of gruesome brutalities. Among the victims,159 were identified as teenagers. The criminal actions of this group, as made public by the police, echo those of the perpetrators of previous sexual exploitation crimes made popular through Telegram. Members would obtain the personal details of women, and then manipulate their targets by threatening to share and disseminate such sensitive material.The ringleader arrested by police reportedly ordered victims to write a letter of apology every hour, and would force them to perform sex acts as “punishment” if they did not obey. Men were also targeted by the group. Members would reach out to men who showed an interest in sharing illegal deepfakes and get ahold of their personal information before threatening them with messages like “You committed a crime. I’m going to report you,” and blackmailing them to create and disseminate sexual abuse material. Police say that in this process, some of the men targeted by the group eventually became official members of the crime ring and actively participated in offenses. The police tally of victims included 13 members of the crew (excluding the ringleader), who have also been named suspects. The group’s hierarchical structure resembles those seen in other Telegram-mediated sex crime rings. The ringleader referred to himself as “The Reverend,” while those below him were known as “deacons” and “missionaries,” depending on rank. This bears similarities to the “Nth Room,” where members were sorted into rankings like “public official,” “upper class” and “commoners.” The tactic is seen as an attempt to instill a sense of superiority by separating the “dominators” from the “dominated.”A police official said that the group’s ringleader “gave a statement to the effect that he had operated the organization because he wanted to see how well people would obey his orders.”Lee Hyo-rin, the secretary general of the Korea Cyber Sexual Violence Response Center, said, “This time it’s a ‘reverend’ instead of a ‘doctor,’ and the scale of victimization has grown, but it bears all the markings of prior sexual exploitation crimes.”“Yet again, we’re seeing crimes committed on a mass scale in which perpetrators sexually objectify and commercialize women under the conviction that they won’t be caught,” she said. This marked the first time that police had nabbed a suspect since Telegram revised its policy last year to cooperate with investigative bodies in countries across the world. “He talked a big game about how he would never, ever get caught, but we got him in the end,” police said. “We hope that this serves as a reminder that offenders will be caught.”Police are reviewing whether to make the ringleader’s identity public. By Ko Na-rin, staff reporterPlease direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]
