SEOUL • A regular volunteer at an orphanage in South Korea has been arrested for alleged sex crimes against women and underage girls in an operation where they were tricked or blackmailed into sharing sexual images of themselves in Telegram chat rooms.
Following public uproar over the case, police yesterday unveiled the identity of the main suspect, who was arrested last week.
Cho Ju-bin, 24, has been accused of distributing sexual content across several different Telegram chat rooms and receiving payment in cryptocurrency.
He is said to have amassed 260,000 users, some of whom had paid up to 1.5 million won (S$1,750) to view the images.
Victims were told to send sexual images of themselves in return for high-paying jobs which did not exist. Cho is also accused of using the pictures to blackmail the victims into sending more videos.
At least 74 women, including 16 underage girls, were "virtually enslaved" for several months, police said. In some cases, the victims were blackmailed into committing violent acts on themselves.
Cho had reportedly volunteered at an orphanage in Incheon from October 2017 until very recently. The time frame of his volunteer work overlapped with the alleged sexual exploitation and assaults and the distribution of the sexually oriented content. Police suspected he began operating the chat rooms in late 2018 till his arrest.
Cho majored in communication and information at a college in Incheon from 2014 to 2018, writing articles and columns for the school newspaper and eventually becoming its managing editor.
He was also active online in high school and responded to some 500 questions posted on South Korea's largest portal operator Naver. In a 2013 response to a post by a writer whose uncle had sexually molested his older sister, Cho advised: "Tell your parents. Sexual assault happens frequently between relatives. Always be vigilant."
A petition filed with the presidential office calling for the full disclosure of Cho's identity had garnered over 2.5 million signatures yesterday. This is the largest number of supporters for any petition on the presidential website to date.
The police investigation is widely expected to expand to tens of thousands of users who accessed illegal videos on Telegram. At least 1.8 million people were in support of a separate petition demanding the disclosure of the 260,000 users of the content.
Some 124 suspects have been arrested and 18 operators of chat rooms on Telegram and other social media platforms have been detained as a result of investigations into such sexual crimes since last September.
THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK, REUTERS
