A Seoul court convicted three people Tuesday of extorting money from online video chat users by threatening to distribute their sexually explicit acts.
Judge Kang Sung-hoon of the Seoul Central District Court sentenced the ringleader, surnamed Choi, to two years in prison, and the other two to one year and eight months behind bars each.
The scam ring, which is based in China, hires mostly North Korean female defectors or ethnic Korean residents in China who can speak Korean fluently, according to court documents.
The accused demanded that 32 men transfer money after threatening to circulate online video footage of them engaging in explicit acts.
“The nature of the crime is very bad as the defendants could ruin the social statuses of the victims. (Yonhap)
