Telegram abuse ring run by teens with 10,000 users, police find gold bar

Three teenagers have been arrested in Gyeonggi Province in South Korea for running Telegram channels built on doxxed women’s data.

Police say the group operated four private channels over seven months, with around 10,000 users allegedly circulating through the network.

What began as peer-run chatrooms evolved into a coordinated abuse ecosystem, with the first channel alone attracting over 5500 participants.

Authorities describe the operation as both harassment and monetized exploitation.

Inside the “bakjebang” channels

The translation of the Korean name for the channels is disturbing itself. “Bakje” translates as to preserve a dead body, and “bang” means chat room. So it’s similar to “taxidermy room.”

The channels function as spaces for humiliating and targeting women using leaked data, particularly with the victims' photos and personal details being shared by participants themselves.

Fake sexual narratives were added to amplify harassment and stigma, while both real and deepfaked content is used.

Alarmingly, investigators also found child sexual abuse material and deepfake content, reported Korea JoonAng Daily.

With the participants in on the act themselves, the entire bakjebang ecosystem blurs the lines between user-generated content and organized crime.

The monetization layer

One suspect reportedly started the first channels and monetized early traffic, with the other two perpetrators following suit, expanding into multiple parallel channels, starting at over 5000 members and later amassing twice that.

Revenue came from paid advertisements placed within Telegram channels, with operators accepting payments from illegal gambling sites to promote them.

The culprits also linked to anonymous SIM card sellers, used to mask criminal identity, with an overall elaborate cashflow model.

The murky network was able to operate for three months, from its inception in September, to a digital net-raid employed by Korean police in December.

Undercover operations led to the identification and arrest of all three suspects following an initial victim's report.

From one of the suspects, authorities seized 7.8 million won (over $5000) in cash and a gold bar worth 11 million won (around $7500.) The remaining two criminals, however, have allegedly already spent their profits.

The police statement read, “Even if suspects use VPNs or overseas IPs, we are tracking and apprehending them through various investigative techniques.”

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The “bakjebang” trend in Korea comes in the wake of a major investigation launched in Spain and Italy into exactly how harassment proliferates across the messenger app Telegram.

And in March this year, a CNN investigation unearthed an online rape circle, revealing over 62 million views, and encouraging users on one of the channels to sedate and rape their partners, resulting in a stream of income for paying viewers.