Police in South Korea nab 3 suspects for selling celebrity deepfake porn
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The suspects are accused of selling deepfake images and videos of celebrities performing sexual acts through numerous Telegram chatrooms.
PHOTO: AFP
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SEOUL – The police in South Korea have apprehended three suspects accused of selling sexually explicit deepfake images and videos of more than 20 South Korean celebrities, including of minors, through the Telegram messaging app, the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency said on Sept 20.
Two suspects were arrested, while the third one surrendered on Sept 19, the police said. They were charged with violating the Juvenile Protection Act and the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Crimes.
The three suspects, in their 20s, were either university students or unemployed.
They are accused of selling deepfake images and videos of more than 20 celebrities performing sexual acts through numerous Telegram chatrooms. Called Hapsabang – with hapsa being an abbreviation of a Korean word meaning composite photo and the word bang referring to a chatroom – the three suspects allegedly ran the chatrooms from November 2023 to July.
A total of 24 suspects, who are in their teens or 20s, allegedly purchased sexually explicit deepfake content from the three chatroom operators.
The police said the number of those arrested for purchasing content through the chatrooms could rise, as they are looking into 80 more suspected buyers.
They said the buyers paid between 20,000 won (S$19) and 40,000 won to enter the chatrooms, where they were able to download or watch the deepfake content.
The chatrooms were discovered through a cyber-monitoring process back in April, setting off an investigation.
The police said they seized more than 10 million won that the suspects made from their scheme.
One suspect admitted that he downloaded deepfake pornography featuring Korean celebrities from other Telegram chatrooms overseas and resold it, the police said.
The three suspects did not create the deepfake pornographic content themselves.
“As of now, there is no evidence of the deepfake pornographic content sold by the three suspects being further disseminated,” a police official told reporters.
“Under the current law, anyone who purchases, possesses or watches sexually exploitative content featuring minors is punishable by imprisonment for more than one year,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Korean National Police Agency reported on Sept 19 that it would earmark up to 500 million won to upgrade the software it uses to detect content generated through deepfakes distributed in secured apps such as Telegram, up by 300 million won from 2023.
The police will also invest 9.1 billion won by 2027, including 2.7 billion won in 2025, to develop a deep-learning technology to detect deepfake content in response to the increasing number of artificial intelligence-generated material targeting women.
