South Korean sex ring leader gets 40 years in prison for blackmailing 74 women
- Cho Ju-bin was found guilty of running an online network that blackmailed victims, including teenagers, into filming violent sexual content
- The case sparked a national outcry, with millions of South Koreans signing petitions urging authorities to release the 24-year-old’s identity
Cho Ju-bin, 24, was found guilty of running an online network that blackmailed at least 74 women, including 16 teenagers, into what authorities called “virtual enslavement” by forcing them to send increasingly degrading and sometimes violent sexual imagery of themselves between May 2019 and February 2020.
The Seoul Central District Court sentenced Cho for violating criminal and child protection laws by making and releasing pornography and running a criminal organisation, Yonhap said.
Cho’s lawyer could not be reached for comment. However, when he was taken into police custody in March, Cho said he wanted to apologise to the victims.
‘Devil’ sex-ring leader’s identity reveal unleashes public fury
“The defendant had lured and threatened multiple victims in various ways to produce pornography and distributed it for a long time to many,” Yonhap reported, citing the unidentified judge who handed down the verdict and sentence.
“He in particular inflicted irrecoverable damage to many victims by publishing their identifies.”
The case sparked a national outcry, with millions of South Koreans signing petitions urging authorities to release Cho’s identity and investigate not only the organisers, but also participants of the network who paid as much as 1.5 million won (US$1,360) to see the abusive videos and images.
