A group was arrested for creating fake nude photos by superimposing the faces of female university alumni or acquaintances and distributing them through a Telegram chatroom called the 'Acquaintance Humiliation Room.'
The Cyber Crime Investigation Unit of the Incheon Metropolitan Police Agency announced on the 2nd that they arrested eight people, including graduate student A (24), on charges of editing and distributing false videos under the Special Act on the Punishment of Sexual Crimes, and booked seven others, including B (25), without detention.
They are accused of producing sexual crime materials 90 times from November 2022 to August last year and distributing them about 270 times through the Telegram acquaintance humiliation room. Investigations revealed that A, the creator and operator of the acquaintance humiliation room, used artificial intelligence (AI)-based 'deepfake' technology and photo editing programs to superimpose the faces of 17 female university alumni with nude photos of other women.
A is reported to have graduated from the same university as the victims and then entered graduate school at another university. Among the victims were not only university alumni but also many acquaintances and unknown women to A and his group.
Not only A but also other graduate students and accomplices created sexual crime materials using photos and personal information of victims posted on Instagram or Naver blogs. These sexual crime materials were then distributed through a chatroom called '00 University 000 Public Exposure Room,' which included the victims' names and the names of the universities they were attending.
Sexual crime material distributed in the 'Acquaintance Humiliation Room' opened on Telegram. Provided by Incheon Metropolitan Police Agency
The Telegram acquaintance humiliation room was operated in the form of a group with a creator, administrators, and participants. After the creator formed the group and promoted the link, an unspecified number of people joined by viewing it.
A gave administrator privileges to active participants among those who entered the acquaintance humiliation room and encouraged other participants to distribute the sexual crime materials to other Telegram rooms. Additionally, to prepare for the possibility of the Telegram room being shut down, they operated a so-called 'shelter' to gradually increase the number of participants.
The police first received a victim report in April 2023, and as more victims came forward, they formed a dedicated team of 26 investigators to conduct the investigation. Of the 15 people including A, 11, including seven who were detained, have already been handed over to the prosecution, and the remaining four are expected to be sent soon.
A man in his 30s, who was the first to be detained in March last year, was sentenced to one year in prison in the first trial in June of the same year for downloading the composite photos from the acquaintance humiliation room and leaking them to acquaintances.
A police official stated, "The suspects thoroughly used Telegram (whose servers are overseas) to avoid tracking while studying police investigation techniques. Going forward, we will actively protect victims by deleting sexual crime materials on the internet and providing psychological counseling and legal support in cooperation with the Digital Sexual Crime Victim Support Center."
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