Article: Dr Cho revealed to have illegally filmed and shared sex videos of at least 74 victims
Source: hani.co.kr
The Seoul Regional Police Agency Cyber Safety Division has arrested a man in his 20s with a Phd, Dr. Cho Moo Gae and 13 others for allegedly exploiting at least 74 underage girls, filming sex videos of them and sharing them on "N bang", a paid chatroom on messaging app Telegram from December 2018 through March this year.
Cho and his accomplices are being charged with seven charges including child pornography, forced assault, intimidation, coercion, fraud, provision of personal information and alleged violations on the Act on Special Cases of Sexual Violence (hidden camera filming etc.) Police were able to identify Cho through dozens of seizure searches and CCI analysis over the past 6 months, international coordinated investigations and crypto-currency tracking they used to evade police.
Cho lured victims through "part-timer model" jobs on SNS or chat apps and once he received their nude photos he would threaten them and call them "slaves", sexually exploit them and coerce them to film themselves doing sexual acts. Some victims were lured to certain locations and sexually assaulted by Cho's accomplices. Cho then distributed these sex videos through his 3-tier paid chatroom on Telegram "N bang (Room N)". The higher the admission fee to the chatroom, the more stimulating the video. Cho is said to have shared these sex videos with at least 260,000 men subscribers of his chatroom.
Among the chatroom members there were also "employees" instructed by Cho to sexually assault the victims or entrusted with tasks such as laundering money, managing sex videos, and operating the chatroom. There were also SNS personnel (public service workers) recruited by Cho through various community sites. Of the 13 arrested, 2 of them were SNS personnel who worked in ward offices and resident centers as "part-timers" and were tasked with extracting the victims personal information as this is how Cho threatened his victims. Police plan to investigate these officials as well for illegal activities.
Among the 13 arrested, none of them had ever seen Cho or knew him personally. He instructed them to commit the crimes via Telegram so that his identity wouldn't be exposed. Cho was working as a journalist for a local university newspaper when he was arrested.
Police, who seized 130 million won in cash at Cho's residence, are tracking his crime profits expected to reach over hundreds of millions of won. A police official stated, "We will track down all of Cho's profits and apply for confiscations. We will also notify the National Tax Service of all proceeds and the prosecution for a strong sentence."
Police are also investigating “God God”, the operator of "N Bang" the original creator of the chatroom. God God ran 8 chat rooms (Rooms 1-8) on Telegram, threatening about 20 to 30 victims called “slave,” making all kinds of sexual exploits and distributing them through "N Bang". He passed his chat room to Watchman in February of last year and is currently in hiding. Currently, God God and Watchman are being tracked by different local police agencies.
Additional source: Hankyung