Four individuals in their 20s and five teenagers were arrested by the police for conspiring to have sexual relations with a minor female they met through a chat app, then assaulting the man and extorting money from him using this as leverage.
According to the Jinhae Police Station in Changwon City, Gyeongnam Province, on the 26th, they were arrested on charges of tricking men into having sexual relations with minors under the pretense of transactional meetings, followed by assault, threats, and extortion of money.
The police have detained three of the nine suspects, and after confirming that two of the remaining six are currently incarcerated for other charges, the remaining four were released without detention and are under investigation for additional offenses.
According to the police, the suspects recruited one minor female who approached men via a chat app, proposing transactional meetings, then lured the men to motels and engaged in sexual relations.
While the men were showering after having sex with the minor female, a group of four to five accomplices waiting in the adjacent motel room received a message from the female, barged into the room, recorded videos, and violently assaulted the men with fists and feet, forcing them to kneel and subdue them.
After subduing the men, they forced them to unlock their mobile phones and collected contact information of the men’s families, threatening, “If you don’t comply, we will send the videos to your family.”
Showing tattoos on their chest and arms, they said, “You had a transactional meeting with a minor,” and “I am her older brother; it would be better to settle this amicably. Otherwise, I will report you to the police.”
They made the victims open financial apps on their phones and transferred money from their accounts to their own accounts, also taking cash by obtaining the victims’ ATM cards. Using the same method, they extorted approximately 1.16 million won from four victims over four separate occasions.
The group is known to be friends or local seniors and juniors who either dropped out of high school and worked in delivery jobs or have prior records of punishment for theft and other offenses.
They divided roles such as luring via chat apps, engaging in sexual acts, filming videos, assaulting and threatening, and scouting for money to commit the crimes in order to secure living and entertainment expenses.
In mid-October 2022, the Jinhae Police Station received intelligence about about ten robbery incidents disguised as transactional meetings at motels in Hapjeong-dong and began an internal investigation.
They persuaded victims who were reluctant to report due to fear of punishment for transactional meetings and prostitution, identified the suspects, and sequentially arrested nine individuals.
The police stated, “Recently, prostitution is being covertly conducted through transactional meeting chat apps. Criminals exploit the fact that victims do not report due to fear of videos or photos being distributed, even when extortion or robbery occurs.”
They added, “We will strengthen app monitoring and intelligence gathering to prevent such crimes in advance, and if similar crimes occur, we will conduct thorough and in-depth investigations and impose severe punishments.”
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