Chatroom sex abuse group leader cho-ju-bin A South Korean law court has punished the organizer of one of the country’s largest online sex abuse rings to 40 years in jail.
Cho Ju-bin was established guilty of running a group that threatened girls into sharing hot sexy videos that were then posted in private pay-to-view chatrooms.
At least 20,000 people used the chatrooms, with some paying up to $1,200 (£1,000) for contact.
Some 84 people, including 20 underage girls, were misused.
“The suspicious has roughly separated sexually foul content that he created by attracting and threatening numerous victims,” the Seoul Central District Court said on Thursday, according to Yonhap news agency.
It said Cho was found shamefaced of violating regulations to protect children from sexual abuse and for running a criminal ring that produced and sold abusive videos in order to make a profit.
Cho’s criminal organization sold the viral sex videos it acquired through blackmail to private chatrooms on the Telegram app.
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The incident flashed a national outcry in South Korea.
In March, a police team took the unusual step of naming Cho, a 26-year-old college graduate, after five million people signed supplications asking for his anonymity to be lifted.
“I apologies to those who were hurt by me,” Cho had said that month as he was run away from a Seoul police station. “Thank you for placing a brake on the lifecycle of a sprite that could not be stopped.”
Police have said at least 124 suspects were arrested and 18 operators of chatrooms on Telegram and other social media, including Cho, were detained following investigations into similar sexual crimes since late last year, reported Reuter’s news agency.
Five other suspects have received sentences ranging from seven to 15 years.
As the magistrates sat down to careful, the call for justice from women’s supporters was loud and clear.
Tens of thousands of requests, counting from victims, had been handed to officials on this case urging them to hand down a hefty prison sentence.
South Korean courts have been accused of being far too lenient on digital sex criminals for far too long.
The 40-year punishment for sex leader Cho Ju-bin still drops short of the life sentence sought by prosecutors.
But one women’s rights group labeled it as “the start of the end” of sexual corruption of women on chat groups.
There are still worries that the victims of this kind of sex offense are not getting the help they need, and the rest of the criminal syndicate received much lighter sentences.
However, women in South Korea will see this as a start and a sign that their long fight is finally yielding results.
But the words I wrote when this case was made public still ring true.
The fury will not stop here.
