[Exclusive] 9 months to catch the deepfake culprit... The perpetrator is a school senior (full video)

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A man who synthesized another person's face in pornography and spread it on social media has been caught.

The man used it as bait to threaten the victim, but when the police caught him, he was the victim's high school senior.

Reporter Sagong Seong-geun covered the story exclusively.

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A woman in her 20s received a strange message through SNS in February of last year.

It was a tip that pictures of her own body were circulating on her Twitter and Telegram.

[Mr. A/Victim of deepfake pornography: At first, I started with selfies and photos I posted on Instagram.

I started with photos of eyes and stuff like that, and later composited my face with photos of women…

.]

It was a so-called 'deepfake' post that synthesized Mr. A's picture with pornography.

As the SNS address was also exposed, dozens of unknown people contacted me, suffering from secondary damage.

[Mr. A/Victim of deepfake pornography: I was very scared.

I can't handle how much it has spread and how much I've seen, and I cry at home all morning.]

A month later, a full-fledged threat began from a man who said he was a post creator.

After sending her creations to her Mr. A, he threatened to either become her own slave or take a picture of her himself and send it to her if he wanted her deleted.

The perpetrator, whom she found after nine months through IP tracking, was a high school senior who lived in the same neighborhood.

At least 6 anonymous accounts were mobilized, and it was revealed that the first informant was also the perpetrator.

[Mr. A/Victim of deepfake pornography: I thought I was wrong at first.

I think the day I identified the suspect was the most psychologically difficult.]

In a statement of reflection submitted to the police, the perpetrator, a man in his 20s, said, "I decided that if someone helped me when threatening you, I would be liked. I was going to appear like a hero and solve it." said.

The police plan to apply for an arrest warrant for the perpetrator tomorrow (26th) at the earliest on charges of distributing false videos and intimidation under the Sexual Violence Punishment Act.

(Video coverage: Kim Seung-tae, Video editing: Park Jeong-sam, CG: Hong Seong-yong·Ryu Sang-soo)

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It took nine months to find and catch the perpetrator in this case.

In the meantime, the victim had to suffer from fear and anxiety every day.

Reporter Park Jae-yeon continued to investigate why it took so long.

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Mr. A reported to the police a month later after learning that he had been victimized by a 'deepfake' sex crime.

Police immediately launched an investigation, but progress was slow.

In order to identify the perpetrator in the SNS space, IP tracking is an urgent priority, but in the case of companies whose headquarters and servers are foreign, such as Twitter and Instagram, it is not easy to cooperate quickly.

It usually takes several months to translate related documents such as court warrants and obtain cooperation from the server management department at the headquarters.

In this case, while the police were seeking overseas cooperation, the victim was contacted for several months and was able to seize the opportunity to identify the access information such as the perpetrator's IP.

[Lee Jae-hee/Attorney: I was able to specify that this IP was the perpetrator's IP, and through the process of confirming once again whether several IDs were the same, I finally identified the perpetrator...

.]

However, like this time, the rate that leads to an actual arrest is less than half.

From 2021 to November of last year, only 302 deepfake video crimes were confirmed by the police, of which 137 were arrested, with an arrest rate of only 45%.

As if ridiculing the slow investigation, the number of fake deepfake videos requested and deleted by the Korea Communications Standards Commission increased from 548 in 2020 to 4,132 by November alone last year, a nearly eightfold increase in three years.

(Video coverage: Lee Sang-hak, Video editing: Jeon Min-gyu, VJ: Lee Jun-young)

Reporter Sagong Seong-geun, who covered this story, is here

.

[Reporter Sagong Seong-geun: This is the common opinion of the victim and the investigative agency.

There is currently no dedicated investigative agency for deepfake sex crimes in Korea.

In the police organization, sex crimes are handled by the Women and Youth Division, and online crimes are handled by the Cyber ​​Investigation Division.

In the end, it is a structure in which neither side can do their best.

For this reason, there are voices saying that there should be a joint investigation team or a dedicated digital sex crime investigation team.]

[Reporter Sagong Seong-geun: First of all, China, which is notorious for controlling airspace, quickly stepped forward.

China's National Internet Information Office has made new regulations on AI-based deepfakes since the 10th.

It is the world's first deepfake national regulation, and the main point is the mandatory display system.

We have to reveal that the video is a deepfake post and we have made it possible to trace the original.

It also contains information that requires the consent of the parties to be synthesized.

It is also pointed out that this has raised controversy between freedom of expression and regulation of criminal abuse, along with criticism that it is trying to block threatening posts to the Communist Party in advance.]