Two South Korean men arrested for secret spycam filming of 1,600 guests in love hotels
- The suspects hid the cameras in locations such as hair dryer holders and wall sockets at 30 hotels in South Korea, media reports said
- More than 800 illegally-filmed videos were live-streamed to 97 subscribers
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The suspects, who have not been named, set up secret cameras in 42 rooms at 30 hotels in 10 South Korean cities between November last year and the beginning of March, media reports said.
The accused went to extraordinary lengths to install the cameras, the cyber investigation unit at the Seoul metropolitan police agency said.
Mini-cameras with 1mm lenses were found in digital boxes, hair dryer holders and wall sockets.
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The suspects then live-streamed over 800 videos of couples having sex to a website – which had 4,000 subscribed members, some who paid 50,000 won (US$44) for access to “exclusive” content – via a server based overseas.
By the time the website was taken down this month, the suspects had earned 7 million won (US$6,200) from 97 people who paid a monthly fee to access the material, the Korea Herald said.
“About 50 per cent of the 1,600 victims are male,” an official from the National Police Agency told AFP.
Two other men are being investigated in connection with the allegations.
Police said there was no evidence the hotels were aware that their guests were being filmed without their knowledge.
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South Korea is battling an epidemic of molka – secretly filmed videos of a sexual nature that target women in public places such as toilets and changing rooms, but also in their own homes.
The rise in cases prompted tens of thousands of women to take to the streets of Seoul last summer to demand longer sentences for perpetrators. The authorities responded by increasing patrols of the city’s public toilets – a measure campaigners say is ineffective.
More than 5,400 were arrested for spycam-related crimes in South Korea in 2017, but fewer than two per cent were jailed.
The hotel spycam suspects face up to five years in prison and a heavy fine for distributing illegal videos.
“The police agency strictly deals with criminals who post and share illegal videos as they severely harm human dignity,” a Seoul police agency official told the Korea Herald.
In South Korea, motels are a relatively affordable option for many travellers from home and overseas, and a popular destination for couples seeking privacy away from parents or other family members.
But they have also long been associated with illicit sex business and crime.
In response to the livestreaming case, a woman from Uruguay tweeted: “Now I won’t feel safe, literally anywhere” in South Korea.
