▲ This file composite photo, released by the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency in February 2025, shows mug shots of Kim Nok-wan, the leader of a Telegram sex crime ring. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

SEOUL, Sept. 10 (Yonhap) -- The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a lower court's life sentence for the leader of a Telegram-based sex crime ring accused of sexually exploiting 261 people, the largest number of victims recorded in a domestic sex crime case.

The top court also approved the lower court's orders for Kim Nok-wan, 34, to wear an electronic monitoring device for 30 years, be barred from working at institutions serving children and adolescents, and have his personal information published for 10 years.

Kim was found guilty of running the crime ring known as "The Vigilantes" from August 2020 to January 2025, producing and distributing sexual exploitative videos, coercing victims into appearing in illegally produced videos and sexually assaulting children and teenagers.

Members of The Vigilantes also blackmailed men and women into submitting nude photos of themselves and used them to produce and distribute sexual exploitation videos.

The number of victims is more than three times that of the notorious "Baksabang" case of 2019-2020, in which Cho Joo-bin blackmailed 73 individuals into making child and adolescent sexual exploitation material that he sold online through encrypted Telegram chat rooms.

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