"Admitted to Committing Crime to Earn Living Expenses"
A man in his 30s was arrested for receiving money from prostitution business owners, filming his own prostitution scenes, and then posting them online in the form of reviews.
The Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency announced on the 9th that they had sent a man in his 30s, using the nickname "Geomeun Buong-i" (Black Owl), to the prosecution under custody on charges of violating the Act on the Punishment of Arrangement of Commercial Sex Acts and the Act on the Punishment of Sexual Crimes (filming using cameras, etc.).
Since 2019 until August of this year, Mr. A is suspected of engaging in prostitution at hundreds of establishments in the Seoul Gangnam area and Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, in the metropolitan area, filming those scenes, and receiving money from business owners in exchange for posting reviews in the form of testimonials on prostitution advertising sites.
Those who are commissioned by prostitution business owners to post professional user reviews on advertising sites are called "writers" in the industry. "Geomeun Buong-i" was reportedly the most well-known writer among prostitution business owners, to the extent that he was separately listed in a detailed entry on the knowledge information site "Namuwiki."
Business owners reportedly paid Mr. A between 100,000 and 400,000 KRW per case, asking for reviews of their establishments and prostitutes, much like requesting product reviews from influencers. Mr. A used 27 lenses worth tens of millions of KRW that he owned, along with professional cameras and lighting equipment, to film his own prostitution videos. He then mosaicked his face and posted the videos in the form of "움짤 (GIF - moving images)" along with review texts on prostitution sites. The prostitutes were also said to have been informed in advance and consented to the filming.
As Mr. A’s reviews gained popularity, with tens of thousands of views per case on prostitution advertising sites, other business owners were introduced to him and commissioned him as well. It is understood that over the past five years, Mr. A filmed hundreds of review videos.
The police seized a total of 5TB of prostitution videos from Mr. A, amounting to 1,929 files. Some videos were found to have been distributed to Mr. A’s acquaintances and other "writers" with the prostitutes’ stage names, ages, and establishment locations exposed. It was also revealed that Mr. A had completed a doctoral program related to cameras and was currently working as an optical lens researcher at a lens development company. Mr. A reportedly admitted to the charges during police questioning, stating that he committed the crimes to earn living expenses.
Meanwhile, earlier this year, the police obtained information about the crimes of prostitution review writers, including Mr. A, during a crackdown on prostitution establishments and began an investigation.
The police additionally booked seven professional advertising agents who created and edited profiles and photos of prostitutes, eight prostitution business owners, and four women who engaged in prostitution at these establishments. Among them, five were arrested and sent to the prosecution. Furthermore, the police took pre-indictment seizure and confiscation measures on approximately 1.25 billion KRW in criminal proceeds earned by these individuals.
Moreover, the police plan to continue blocking the prostitution advertising sites where Mr. A operated and to continue investigations into the site operators.
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