This image is unrelated to the article. [Getty Images Bank]
This image is unrelated to the article. [Getty Images Bank]

A man in his 60s who operated an illegal adult website derived from the notorious "Soranet" — once condemned for distributing illicit recordings and facilitating sex crimes — has been sent to prosecutors in custody.

The South Gyeongsang Province Police Agency's cyber investigation unit said Monday it had forwarded the man, identified only as A, to prosecutors on charges of distributing obscene material under the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection, and of spreading illegally filmed content under the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Violence Crimes.

A is accused of operating a site that shared illegally filmed content from April 2021 through June, distributing videos, photos and written posts through the platform.

The site was found to be a spinoff of Soranet, which had drawn widespread condemnation for distributing illicit recordings and facilitating the planning of sex crimes. The site hosted videos and other content depicting the sexual activity of users' spouses or romantic partners, and also carried posts soliciting offline meetings, police said.

According to police, the site had an estimated 1,000 paying members, and approximately 2,000 pieces of content — including illicit videos, photos and written posts — had been uploaded.

The cyber investigation unit launched its probe in July after receiving instructions from the agency's headquarters, identified A the following month and arrested him at a residential address in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province, this month.

During police questioning, A reportedly said he ran the site to share his sexual preferences rather than to make money.

He also based the site's servers in the United States and changed the site's address at regular intervals. To evade detection, he used mobile culture gift vouchers and overseas internet payment services to process payments from paying members, according to investigators.

Police sent A to prosecutors on Sept. 18 and said they plan to track down and apprehend approximately 100 paying members who uploaded illicit content to the site.


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