3 suspects apprehended for selling celebrity deepfake porn: police

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Three suspects are accused of selling sexually explicit deepfake images and videos of over 20 South Korean celebrities, including minors, through Telegram, according to Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency on Friday.

Police officials announced two suspects were arrested and one was apprehended without arrest Thursday in violation of the Juvenile Protection Act and the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Crimes.

The police said the three suspects were in their 20s and were either university students or unemployed.

The three suspects are accused of selling deepfake images and videos featuring more than 20 celebrities, some of minors, performing sexual acts through numerous Telegram chat rooms.

Called “Hapsabang,” with “hapsa” being an abbreviation of a Korean word meaning composite photo and “bang” referring to a chatroom, the three suspects allegedly ran such chatrooms from November 2023 to July 2024.

Twenty-four suspects, who are in their teens or 20s, allegedly purchased sexually explicit deepfake content from the three chatroom operators and were also booked by the police for violating the Juvenile Protection Act.

However, the police added that the number of those arrested for purchasing deepfake pornography content through the chatroom could increase as the police are looking into 80 additional suspected buyers.

Police officials added that the buyers paid between 20,000 to 40,000 won ($15-$30) to enter the Telegram chatrooms, where they could download or watch the deepfake content being uploaded.

According to the police, the Telegram chatrooms were discovered through the police’s cyber monitoring process back in April, prompting police officials to launch an investigation into the operators behind the chatrooms.

After apprehending the three suspects in charge of running the chatrooms, the police seized more than 10 million won the suspects made from the crime.

The police stated that during the investigation one suspect admitted that he had downloaded deepfake pornography featuring Korean celebrities from other Telegram chatrooms overseas and resold it.

Based on police investigation so far, the police added that they currently believe the three suspects did not create the deepfake pornographic content themselves.

“As of now, there is no evidence of the deepfake pornographic content sold by the three suspects being further disseminated,” a police official told local media. “Under the current law, anyone who purchases, possesses or watches sexually exploitative content featuring minors is punishable by imprisonment for more than one year.”

Meanwhile, the Korean National Police Agency reported Thursday that it will budget up to 500 million won to upgrade its software in detecting fake content generated through deepfakes distributed in secure messengers such as Telegram -- a 300 million won increase from its budget in 2023.

Additionally, the police will also invest a total of 9.1 billion won by 2027, including 2.7 billion won this year, to develop a deep-learning technology to detect deepfake content in response to the increasing number of artificial intelligence-generated material targeting women.

By Lee Jung-joo(lee.jungjoo@heraldcorp.com)