Here is an update on the bizarre video sex case in South Korea:
Cho Ju-bin, the prime suspect in a massive Telegram blackmailing case, speaks to reporters at Jongno Police Station in central Seoul on March 25, 2020. (Yonhap)
A man suspected of blackmailing dozens of victims, including minors, into performing violent sex acts and selling the videos in mobile chat rooms was handed over to the prosecution on Wednesday for further investigation.
At least 74 people, including 16 underage girls, are known to have been exploited in the case, widely known as the “Nth room case,” in which prime suspect Cho Ju-bin allegedly lured victims into taking photos and later coerced them into performing more gruesome sex acts.
The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency sent Cho’s case to the prosecution on charges including violation of the act on the protection of children and youth against sex offenses.
This is a weird case because the victims were allegedly being extorted digitally to do sex acts with no threats of physical force:
Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Kang Min-seok reads out a statement by President Moon Jae-in on a digital sex abuse case on March 23, 2020. (Yonhap)
President Moon Jae-in called Monday for a thorough investigation into shocking sex crimes against women, including underage girls, in which group chat rooms of the Telegram messenger service were used.
He described the acts of the offenders in the so-called Nth room case as “cruel” behavior that destroyed the lives of victims and said he “feels sympathetic” to the “justifiable” public fury over it.
At least 74 women, including 16 minors, were sexually abused and exploited for several months, as they were virtually enslaved with threats of spreading photos of their naked bodies, according to police. They were forced to photograph or film themselves doing sexual acts, even grotesque ones. Those were shared with a host of viewers in the chat rooms. The number of members, who paid money for the materials, reportedly reaches 260,000.
The Stars & Stripes has an article about the curfew ending and here is a quote from the Provost Marshall on Osan Airbase I found interesting:
Service members and locals walk through an entertainment district just outside Osan Air Base, South Korea, on Saturday, Dec. 14, 2019.
“We continue to be disappointed with the actions of a few individuals, mainly soldiers going out and getting into fights at night,” provost marshal Col. John Fivian told Stars and Stripes on Monday at USFK headquarters on Camp Humphreys.
He said problems were more noticeable in South Korea because troops who get into trouble are usually turned over to their commands; in the U.S., they would be dealt with by local authorities.
I am sure the Provost understands this, but if servicemembers are arrested off base it is more nuanced than stating they are just handed over to their commands. Here is what the SOFA says:
The US retained custody until the completion of all judicial proceedings, including appeals prior to 2001. Under the revised SOFA, the ROK may now receive custody upon indictment if it requests in any one of twelve categories of serious cases. Such cases include murder, rape, kidnapping, arson, drug trafficking or manufacturing, robbery with a dangerous weapon, and cases of assaults, drunk driving or fleeing the scene of an accident that result in death. In very serious cases of murder or rape, if the Korean police arrest a SOFA accused in the act, in hot pursuit, or before he or she returns to military control, they may retain custody.
For minor crimes, yes servicemembers are usually handed over back to their commands, but for major crimes the Korean authorities can keep them in custody.
I absolutely called this one that the next time we see Cho Kuk’s younger brother he would be in a wheelchair. He had earlier tried to avoid arrest by claiming he had a bad back, now he is wheelchair bound and even added a neck brace for added dramatic effect:
On a wheelchair, a younger brother of former Justice Minister Cho Kuk, moves to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office for probes on Oct. 21, 2019. (Yonhap)
The prosecution again sought an arrest warrant for a younger brother of former Justice Minister Cho Kuk on Tuesday over a hiring scandal and an alleged fake lawsuit surrounding a private school foundation run by his family.
State prosecutors asked a Seoul court to issue a warrant to formally detain the 52-year-old man over charges, including breach of duty, bribery, obstruction of justice and aiding and abetting destruction of evidence.
The brother, who worked at the Woongdong school foundation, is alleged to have leaked test questions and answers to two people who applied to teaching posts at a middle school run by the foundation and received 210 million won (US$180,102)
He is also suspected of incurring financial losses to the school foundation by filing a fraudulent lawsuit against it over construction costs.
The prosecution claimed the younger Cho should be arrested, given that two brokers who gave the money to him were already taken into custody. A court review of the request will be held probably on Thursday.
The prosecution earlier sought an arrest warrant for him, but a local court rejected to issue it on Oct. 9, saying the charges are disputable.
If the warrant is issued, he would be the third member of the former minister’s family to be arrested.
Chung Kyung-sim, Cho’s wife, was arrested last week on a total of 11 counts of charges including an alleged forgery of a school award for her daughter and a dubious investment in a private equity fund. A son of Cho’s cousin involved in the fund was also arrested in mid-September.
As you can see the Korean media continues to blur the faces of those involved with the Cho Kuk scandal. For this brother they don’t even give his name instead call him the younger Cho. This very much unlike what they did with everyone involved with the President Park Geun-hye impeachment who the media did everything possible to personally destroy.
This is interesting, one of the murders that the Hwaseong Serial Killer has admitted to already had someone jailed for the crime:
National Police Agency Commissioner General Min Gap-ryong answers questions about the Hwaseong serial murder cases during a parliamentary audit at the National Police Agency in central Seoul, Oct. 4. Yonhap
A man who spent nearly 20 years in prison for raping and killing a teenage girl is seeking a retrial to be exonerated after the notorious Hwaseong serial killer claimed responsibility for what was believed to be a “copycat” murder.
Lawyer Park Joon-young said Wednesday he will represent the man, 52, surnamed Yoon.
“For Yoon, this is a heaven-sent opportunity (to prove his innocence). I won’t waste it,” Park wrote on Facebook. “I will form a team of lawyers and, once completed, reveal their names.”
The development comes after Lee Chun-jae, 56, the prime suspect in at least nine murders between September 1986 and April 1991, claimed responsibility for the Sept. 16, 1988 so-called “copycat” murder ― 30 years after Yoon was convicted of killing the girl, 13, surnamed Park.
Speaking to Channel A, a local broadcaster, Yoon claimed police forced him to make a false confession after they assaulted and tortured him.
Yoon, then 22, was arrested in 1989 for killing the girl at her home. He was later sentenced to life in prison, which the Supreme Court upheld in May 1990. After spending 19 years and six months behind bars, he was released in 2009 for good behavior.
What a sicko, it makes me wonder how long he has been doing this?:
An Air Force colonel pleaded guilty Friday to receiving child pornography online and taking photos of underage girls without their consent, according to the Department of Justice.
Col. Mark Visconi, 48, of Fairfax, Va., used an online bulletin board dedicated to sharing illegal images of minors between November 2015 and June 2016, according to the release from the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Virginia. A forensic review of his laptop showed that Visconi downloaded and viewed numerous child pornography images and videos using an anonymous web browser.
Titles indicated he downloaded videos of girls as young as 3 years old, according to court documents. In another, investigators noted the girl had a pillowcase with characters from the animated film “Beauty and the Beast.”
The plea documents also noted Visconi used his cell phone to create more than 440 pictures focused on the clothed buttocks of minor girls, according to the release. In a smaller subset of these pictures, Visconi appeared to take “upskirting” images of some of the girls, who did not appear to know that pictures were being taken.
The top story in Korea that is headlining all its news outlets is the announcement that the Hwaseong Serial Killer has been identified after all these years:
This file photo shows a wanted leaflet containing a composite sketch of the suspect for a serial murder case that took place in Hwaseong, south of Seoul, in the 1980s. (Yonhap)
Police may have solved one of the Korea’s most mysterious cold cases: the serial rapes and murders of nine women in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi, in the late 1980s.
According to Ban Ki-soo, a chief investigator at the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency on Thursday, newly analyzed DNA evidence from three of the nine cases matched the DNA of a 56-year-old convict surnamed Lee currently serving a life sentence in Busan for a different murder he committed in 1994.
This discovery could very well bring a resolution to one of the most notorious serial rape and murder sprees in Korean criminal history, which terrified Korea from 1986 to 1991 and remained unsolved for three decades.
Yet the suspect, who was in his 20s at the time of the killings, can no longer be charged for any of those crimes since the statute of limitations for the last of the murders expired in April 2006. He has denied responsibility for all nine murders, police said.
Lee is serving a life sentence in the Busan Penitentiary for raping and murdering his wife’s sister, aged 20 at his home in Cheongju, North Chungcheong, in January 1994. According to press reports, he is a model prisoner with a taciturn personality who is eligible for parole.
A 10-victim rape and murder spree of the late 1980s and early 1990s terrified the nation — particularly due to the authorities’ inability to find a culprit — and was compared to the so-called Zodiac killings in California in the late 1960s. The killings gave rise to copycat crimes and inspired one of the most iconic blockbusters of Korean cinema, “Memories of Murder.”
You can read more at the link, but here is a video report of the announcement from Arirang News:
The suspect could have likely been identified sooner if the investigators back when the crimes happened did not discard so much evidence such as cigarette butts found at the scene that would have much DNA evidence. Instead modern day forensic scientists using new technology were able to extract DNA from the victim’s clothes that were saved as evidence to make this DNA match.
For those that haven’t I highly recommend watching the Korean movie, Memories of Murder which uses a dramatized account of the investigation to show how incompetent it was and the killer’s impact on Korean society back then.
What I have not been able to find out is if the identified killer was even a suspect during the time of the killings? The police back then had many suspects that they were trying to pin the murder on, so it would be interesting to see if this guy was even on the police’s radar back then.
Since they are left wing activists I would be surprised if anything significant happens to them for forcibly occupying the office of a prominent Korean opposition lawmaker:
Police on Saturday requested arrest warrants for two members of a progressive collegiate association for trespassing.
The two had occupied Liberty Korea Party Floor Leader Na Kyung-won’s office as part of a protest, Yeongdeungpo Police Station said Sunday. They are reportedly college students.
They were among 22 members of the group who had occupied Rep. Na’s office at around 10 a.m. Friday to stage a protest demanding Na and Liberty Korea Party chief Hwang Kyo-ahn step down from their positions.
The members are calling for Na and Hwang to resign based on claims that Na made an inappropriate remark on Korean history and Hwang tried to cover up Kim Hak-eui’s sex bribery scandal and hindered attempts to find the truth regarding the Sewol Ferry tragedy.
During the 40-minute protest, the members chanted and carried placards. They also formed a scrummage by lying down on the ground when the National Assembly’s security staff tried to stop them.
The members were dragged outside of the building some 50 minutes after the protest began. Police took the members to the police station after they continued their protest in front of the building.
Stories like this make me want to do a complete check of a hotel room in Korea for these spy cameras:
Two men who installed miniature spy cameras in 30 motels and live-streamed footage of around 1,600 guests were arrested, police announced Wednesday.
Since August last year, a 50-year-old man surnamed Park and a 48-year-old man surnamed Kim installed spy cameras in 42 rooms in 30 motels located in 10 cities throughout the country.
The diameter of the camera lenses was smaller than 1 millimeter (0.04 inches), and the two men installed them in parts of TVs, power sockets and even in the hangers for hair dryers that hang on the wall in bathrooms.
Each camera had a wireless function that allowed the men to upload online videos taken on the camera to various websites.
The lives of around 1,600 guests in these motel rooms were streamed live on a pornography website that Kim ran on an overseas server.
Park and Kim made users pay for the videos on the website, and they made some 7 million won in total ($6,197) from 97 members.
