Police in South Korea have arrested two men for secretly filming 1,600 hotel guests and streaming the footage live online in the latest voyeurism scandal to hit the nation.
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 start of this month, media reports said.
The arrests came a week after singer and TV celebrity Jung Joon-young admitted he had secretly filmed himself having sex with women and shared the footage online without their consent.
Photo: AFP
The suspects in the latest case went to extraordinary lengths to install the cameras, the cyberinvestigation unit at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said.
Miniature cameras with 1mm lenses were found in digital boxes, hair dryer holders and wall sockets. More than 800 illegally filmed videos were live streamed via a server based overseas.
By the time the site was taken down this month, the suspects had earned 7 million won (US$6,204) from 97 people who paid a monthly fee to access the material, the Korea Herald said.
Two other men are being investigated in connection with the allegations.
There was no evidence the hotels were aware that their guests were being filmed without their knowledge, police said.
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.
Authorities responded by increasing patrols of the city’s public toilets — a measure campaigners say is ineffective.
Police reported 6,470 cases of illegal filming in 2017, compared with 1,353 cases in 2012, the South Korean National Police Agency said.
However, many offenders are ordered to pay modest fines and in most cases the crime goes unpunished.
The hotel spy cam 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 official told the Korea Herald.
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