The Taichung District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted six people in a cybersex criminal case involving an estimated 86 victims that has been compared to the “Nth Room” case in South Korea.
The suspects allegedly contravened the Child and Youth Sexual Exploitation Act (兒童及少年性剝削防制條例) and the Organized Crime Prevention Act (犯罪組織犯罪條例), the office said.
In the “Nth Room” case, a person spread sexually exploitative content on the Telegram messaging app from 2018 to 2020.
Photo: Chen Chien-chih, Taipei Times
Pan Tse-wei (潘擇維), 35, and Chen Tsuo-wei (陳佐維), 37, are accused of targeting female minors on Instagram to obtain nudes or other photographs of an indecent nature by saying they could make money or were hiring models, the office said.
The minors were asked to take photographs of themselves displaying their IDs and wearing their school uniforms, which Pan and Chen used to threaten them to take indecent photos, the office said.
Chen, Pan and accomplices Chang Hui-yu (張蕙祐) and Liu You-sheng (劉郁晟), both 29, along with two other accomplices, surnamed Lee (李) and Su (蘇), uploaded the photos to a group on Telegram, where they charged people to view them, it said.
They initially sought credits for online game as payment before switching to the Tether cryptocurrency, it added.
The group made NT$8 million (US$253,735) in just under three months from the scheme, the office said.
Their actions demonstrated cruelty that violated human dignity and posed a severe threat to social order, it said.
The indictment requested that Chen, Pan and Liu be sentenced to 30 years in prison, Lee to 10 years, Chang to seven years and Su to five years, and that the court approve the confiscation of all illegal profits generated by the group’s actions.
Additional reporting by CNA
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