Six men were yesterday sentenced to between 1.5 years and 12 years in prison for tricking or blackmailing girls into filming sexually explicit pictures and videos, and then selling them online.
According to the indictment by Taichung prosecutors, a 35-year-old man surnamed Pan (潘) began soliciting sexually explicit photos from girls on Instagram in 2021 using fraud and threats.
Pan then uploaded the images to a Telegram channel he created, and sold or traded them with other users, in a manner apparently modeled on South Korea’s “Nth room” case, prosecutors said.
Photo: Chang Jui-chen, Taipei Times
Later, Pan enlisted five other men to help him: a 37-year-old beef noodle soup store owner surnamed Chen (陳), and others surnamed Chang (張), Liu (劉), Su (蘇) and Lee (李).
The group victimized 86 girls aged nine to 17 from across Taiwan, earning about NT$8 million (US$244,888) in illicit profits, according to the indictment.
Chen, in particular, was found to have recruited girls by promising them money or iPhones in return. After obtaining their images, Chen blackmailed the girls into sending more by threatening to publish images if they refused, prosecutors said.
The crime ring was ultimately busted based on information provided by the operator of another child pornography chat group on Telegram, who was arrested in late 2022.
Following an investigation, the Taichung District Prosecutors’ Office indicted Pan and the five other suspects in December last year for violations of the Organized Crime Prevention Act (組織犯罪防制條例), and the Child and Youth Sexual Exploitation Prevention Act (兒童及少年性剝削防制條例).
The Taichung District Court on Thursday last week found all six men guilty, sentencing Pan to six years in prison, Chen to 12 years, Liu to 10 years, Chang to three years, Lee to 8.5 years. Su was sentenced to to 1.5 years in prison, suspended for four years.
The sentences are subject to appeal.
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