Supreme Court confirms life sentence for leader of Telegram sex crime ring

The Supreme Court has affirmed a life sentence for the head of a Telegram-driven sex crime ring that exploited 261 victims, marking the most extensive case of its kind domestically. Kim Nok-wan, 34, was convicted of operating the "The Vigilantes" from August 2020 until January 2025. During this period, he produced and disseminated sexual exploitation videos, coerced victims to appear in illicitly filmed content, and sexually assaulted children and adolescents.

The court also upheld the lower court's directives for Kim, requiring him to wear an electronic monitoring device for a 30-year duration, ban him from working at institutions that serve children and adolescents, and publish his personal information for a decade. The scale of this case significantly surpasses the infamous "Baksabang" case from 2019-2020, where Cho Joo-bin blackmailed 73 individuals into creating child and adolescent sexual exploitation material, which he then sold online through encrypted Telegram chat rooms.