Seoul, Nov 16 – South Korea’s police said they’ve taken down more than 3,000 people linked to online sex crimes in the past year, many of whom were teens. The National Police Agency (NPA) logged 3,411 cases of online sexual abuse between November 2024 and October 2025, and arrested 221 of those suspects.
Deepfake technology topped the crime list. About 35 % of the cases involved deepfakes, followed closely by 34 % that featured sexual videos of minors. Illegal recordings made up 19 % of the total. Roughly half of the offenders – 1,761 people – were 10‑19 years old. Those in their 20s made up 1,228, while the 30‑ and 40‑s likely matched 468 and 169, respectively.
The NPA said over 90 % of deepfake criminals were teens or people in their 20s, because they’re more comfortable using digital tools. The number of arrests rose by nearly 48 % compared with last year, a jump linked to a spike in deepfake cases and tougher penalties for such crimes.
To stay ahead, the police will invest 9.1 billion won (about US $6.2 million) to build a deepfake‑detection system. The project, slated to finish in December 2027, will use multimodal algorithms to analyze video noise and audio frequencies and spot AI‑generated content. It will also employ generative AI to trace the origins of misleading online content and cut off fake news before it spreads.
These steps come as South Korea ramp up its fight against a growing wave of AI‑driven crimes that exploit images and voices to target victims and spread misinformation.
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