As Police Investigation Tightens, 'Juhonggeulssi' Ceases Activities and Voluntarily Disbands

Personal Information Disclosure Chatroom Operated for 1 Year and 3 Months
Personal Data of Sexual Exploitation Offenders Deleted

Digital Prison Phase 1 Operator Arrested
Phase 2 Operator Closed SNS and Disappeared
Confirmed as Scarlet Letter Operator or Related Person

[Asia Economy Reporters Seungyoon Song, Jeongyun Lee] Juhonggeulssi, which had been exposing the identities of sexual exploitation offenders by claiming to be a vigilante group on Telegram, suddenly announced the suspension of its activities and voluntarily disbanded. This comes about 1 year and 3 months after the identity disclosure chatroom was created.

According to the Telegram account Juhonggeulssi on the 19th, the group declared the suspension of activities the day before and deleted all personal information of sexual exploitation offenders in the existing identity disclosure chatroom. However, the chatroom was not 'blown up (closed)'. Mr. A, known as the operator of Juhonggeulssi, stated the reason for suspending activities was, "As the police investigation net tightened, I judged it was increasingly difficult to continue operating." He explained that the police had already identified most of the Juhonggeulssi operators and some had even been summoned for questioning, leading to a loss of will to operate. However, the police drew a line regarding whether the Juhonggeulssi operators had been summoned, saying, "Since the investigation is ongoing, we cannot confirm."

Originally, Juhonggeulssi had shown considerable confidence, believing they could evade police investigations. However, with some related members already arrested and the subsequent capture of the Digital Prison operator, it appears their mindset has changed. Nevertheless, they stated they have no intention of surrendering to the police first.

Juhonggeulssi, established in July last year, had been arbitrarily exposing the identities of those who appeared to have produced, purchased, or possessed sexual exploitation pornography, claiming to be vigilantes within the Telegram messenger. Currently, the Busan Metropolitan Police Agency Cyber Investigation Unit has been exclusively handling the investigation related to Juhonggeulssi for six months. The police have arrested some operators but have yet to capture the core operator.

The website 'Digital Gyodoso' (Digital Prison), which repeatedly revived despite blocking measures by the Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC), has shown no signs of resuming operations for nearly half a month since the arrest of its first operator. The second operator, who inherited the site from the first, has deleted all social network service (SNS) accounts such as Twitter and Instagram, as well as chatrooms, and has gone into hiding.

Meanwhile, the Daegu Metropolitan Police Agency, investigating the Digital Gyodoso case, revealed that the second operator of Digital Gyodoso was confirmed to be the operator or related person of Juhonggeulssi. Juhonggeulssi denied this fact, but the police explained that there is considerable evidence from the investigation results to judge it is the same person.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.