South Korea hunts down leader of new ‘Nth Room’ as sex crimes soar despite digital reforms
- Suspect ‘L’ is believed to have coerced minors to perform sexual acts on camera and profited from the distribution and sale of the material on Telegram
- Despite a law imposed last year to combat digital sex crimes, they continue to proliferate ‘faster and more easily than ever’, according to activists
The scandal involves a criminal mastermind given the alias “L”, who police are tracking down – along with possible accomplices and viewers of illegal content – for coercing minors to perform sexually degrading acts on camera and profiting from their distribution and sale to users through the private messaging app Telegram.
South Korean police typically hide the face and information of criminals, but nearly 2.7 million people signed a petition demanding to see the 24-year-old’s face.
In the original Nth Room case, at least 103 people, including 26 underage girls, were blackmailed into performing gruesome sex acts while their photos were shared and sold to more than 60,000 users.
Moon Hyung-wook, creator of the Nth Room chat room which had some 260,000 users, was sentenced to 34 years in jail, while Cho, who was part of the case but ran a different chat room called “Baksa Room” with at least 10,000 members, was handed a total prison term of 45 years.