Prostitution website operator nabbed

Police said Thursday that they have arrested a man who ran a prostitution website using an overseas server on charges of arranging sex trade and distributing pornographic material.

According to the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency’s cybersecurity division, the man, identified only by his surname Choi, earned a total of 280 million won ($257,740) by arranging some 14,000 cases of prostitution through his website from July 2013 to January last year.

Choi arranged prostitution for men who contacted him after seeing the ads on his website, and had them pay between 100,000 won and 150,000 won. Choi collected a commission of between 10,000 won and 30,000 won from the prostitutes, police said.

Choi had brokered prostitution on the nation’s largest pornographic website Sora.net until it was shut down in April 2016 in a police crackdown. He then set up his own website for the crime, using a server in Japan to avoid detection. He frequently changed the website address, which he promoted through social media.

Choi’s website carried photos of the women’s bodies and reviews by those who bought sex.

Police also booked 12 women who put up their naked photos online on Choi’s recommendation and provided sexual services, as well as a person who built the website for Choi on charges of advertising prostitution and distributing pornographic material.

Police said the case had been handed over to the prosecutors’ office.

The website producer, also surnamed Choi, is suspected of creating 11 pornographic websites, for which he was paid between 700,000 won 1 million won per site.

Police also arrested a man surnamed Shin for making some 1,600 postings of pornographic material on a website that Choi built for him.

By Kim So-hyun (sophie@heraldcorp.com)