3,500 suspected sexual cybercrimes arrested in South Korea. Half are teenagers

South Korean police announced this Monday that they had arrested more than 3,500 suspects last year in a broad operation to combat cyber sexual crimes. Almost half of offenders are teenagers.

According to the National Investigation Bureau of the Korean National Police Agency (KNPA), a nationwide operation conducted between November 2024 and October 2025 uncovered 3,411 cases of sexual crimes cyber among 4413 reported cases.

The police operation resulted in the formation of 3557 suspects as defendants221 of whom were detained preventively, according to the .

The police launched the operation after, in August 2024, they were discovered chat rooms on the social network Telegram where members shared sexually explicit images of people you know.

The images were generated using tecnologia deepfake which uses artificial intelligence to create realistic but fake images and videos. The police discovered that deepfake crimes represented the largest share of sexual offenses reported cyber attacks, totaling 1553 cases, or 35.2% of the total.

Other important offenses include possession and distribution of sexually exploitative material involving minors (1513 cases) and the production or circulation of illegally captured content (857 cases). Deepfake material involving children or teenagers is counted in both categories.

Police data showed that most offenders were teenagerswhich represent 47.6% of all suspects. This was followed by individuals in their twenties, 33.2%, and in their thirties and forties, with 12.7% and 4.6%, respectively.

Considering only the crimes related to deepfake, the percentage of teenagers rose to 61.8%, or 895 individuals, while the number of offenders in their twenties represented 30.2%.

The police attribute these numbers to digital fluency of young people and the accessibility of editing tools.

According to the KNPA, the total number of arrests for cyber sexual crimes represented a increase of 47.8% compared to the same period the previous year, when 2406 suspects were arrested.

Officials said the sharp increase was due in part to the rapid advancement of AI technologieswhich facilitated the production of deepfakes, as well as a legal review made to the Law on Special Cases Relating to the Punishment of Sexual Crimes, which expanded the scope of punishment for sexual crimes committed through deepfake technologies.

KNPA plans to extend the operation until October 2026, focusing on crimes involving the use of AI and emerging abuses of generative technologyand continue to work with platforms like Telegram to remove or block explicit videos.

While not an exclusive phenomenon to South Korea, cyber sexual crimes committed by teenagers are a growing challenge in the countrywhich has faced several high-impact cases in recent years.

The problem is actually prior to the popularization of deepfakes built with AI. The film ““, by Lee Han-wook, in 2018 told the story of a group of teenagers and a teacher who are victims of a scheme of sexual crimes and blackmail, coordinated by a mysterious “Master”.

The ending of the film is unexpected, shocking… and premonitory.