This illustration shows deepfake technology. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Nov. 16 (Korea Bizwire) – Police have apprehended over 3,000 suspects in connection with online sex crimes over the past year, with nearly half of them in their teens, officials said Sunday.
The National Police Agency (NPA) has detected 3,411 online sexual abuse cases between November 2024 and October this year, effectively detaining 3,557 people in total. Of them, 221 were formally arrested.
By type of crime, crimes involving deepfake technology accounted for 35.2 percent of the total, followed by sexual videos of children or adolescents at 34.3 percent, and illegally filmed materials at 19.4 percent.
Nearly half of all suspects, or 1,761, were in their teens, followed by those in their 20s at 1,228, and people in their 30s and 40s at 468 and 169, respectively.
Over 90 percent of suspects behind deepfake crimes were in their teens or 20s, largely due to their familiarity with using digital tools, according to the NPA.
The number of people apprehended for online sex crimes increased 47.8 percent year-on-year, with the NPA citing a surge of deepfake crimes since the second half of last year and an expanded punishment for crimes involving deepfake technology.
(Yonhap)
