Nth Room Case

Nth Room Case

The Nth Room Case is a digital sexual crime case that occurred in South Korea from 2018 to 2020 in which explicit content, obtained by threatening and coercing women to do certain activities, was spread or sold mainly through the use of the mobile app, Telegram. After gaining attention from the public, a massive outrage compelled the police into investigating and capturing the perpetrators behind the case.

Summary

The name “Nth Room” is derived from the titles of the multiple chatting rooms hosted on Telegram for the same purpose of online prostitution through the distribution of explicit content. The first rooms ranged from numbers 1 to 8 (i.e. 1st Room, 2nd Room, 3rd Room) and the variable ‘N’ served as a way to classify the group of rooms as a whole. Other rooms with titles that did not follow the numerical order instead represented either the room’s owner or the specific type of videos it was offering, with the most famous and notorious room being the Doctor’s Room.

Perpetrators

Moon Hyung Wook (God God)

Moon Hyung Wook was born in 1995 and was the original creator of the “Nth Rooms” created for the making and sharing of sexual exploitation.

Cho Ju Bin (Doctor)

Cho Ju Bin was born in 1995 and was a college graduate who had also finished the Korean mandatory military service. During his time in college, he majored in Information and Communication and with a high GPA, he was rewarded several scholarships. According to his colleagues, contrary to his academic feats, he had trouble with interpersonal relations. However, his colleagues also said that Cho did not break any rules regarding sexual assault.

Cho was the creator and administrator of one of the Telegram chatting rooms of the “Nth Room” Case called the “Doctor’s Room” where he went by the nickname, “Doctor.” Seeking profit, Cho divided his room into one subgroup where anyone could access the offered media with no cost and three subgroups that offered “more explicit” media depending on the payment made in cryptocurrency. Cho gained profit with the content obtained from exploiting his victims, whom he often referred to as slaves. As of March 2020, 74 victims from the Doctor’s Room have been identified and around 130 million Korean Won (about $110,000) of Cho’s profits have been seized. Frequent users of the Doctor’s Room were assigned by Cho as his “employees” and were instructed to sexually assault the victims, launder money, share content, or help administer the room. Cho was able to obtain private information about the identity of victims and even some of his clients by bribing public service personnel who had the access to that kind of information. He then took advantage of the information to blackmail his victims and clients.

Investigation

The first individuals to act on this case were two female university students who went by the alias, “Team Flame.” They began investigating the Telegram chat rooms with the intent of submitting their work for an investigative journalism competition hosted by the Korea News Agency Commission. Using Telegram’s anonymity, they managed to join some of the suspected chat rooms to investigate the crime and capture any information that could be used to identify any suspects. Team Flame eventually won the competition with their submission titled, “Do you sell child porn?... Crime flourishing on Telegram.” This raised awareness of the problem and was followed by a police investigation.

Exact details of the police investigation on the culprits behind the “Nth Room” Case have not been revealed. As shown in a report about the investigation behind the Doctor’s Room made by the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, the investigation started in September of 2019 and after 6 months of investigation using search warrants, CCTV analysis, international cooperation with investigation, and cryptocurrency tracking, it was able to track down 14 suspects including Cho Ju Bin and arrested 5 of them.

Public Response

National Petition

In March 20, 2020, an online national petition was created on the Korean Blue House website. The petition called for the disclosure of the identities of every member that was registered within the Telegram chat rooms. Policy states that the presidential office has to release an official response if a petition manages to receive at least 200,000 signatures within a one-month period.

With the petition receiving a record high of around 2 million signatures, the Chief of the National Police Agency and the Minister of Gender Equality and Family both gave an official response.

Celebrity Response

Korean celebrities, including famous K-Pop stars, joined the cause by sharing their concerns about the issue and encouraging people to sign the petition through the use of social media.