A South Korean school student has been referred to prosecutors over allegations he produced sexual deepfakes of about 20 female classmates, a year after police received an allegation about the same account and closed it because they could not identify who was behind it, according to the regional publication Kyungin Ilbo.
The cyber investigation unit of the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency said it had sent the case to prosecutors under the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Crimes, in announcements reported on Tuesday by South Korean media. Police alleged the student had used photographs of girls he knew, without their consent, to make sexual images and then to post them online.
Kyungin Ilbo said the account was called “지인평가” — acquaintance rating. On it, the paper reported, he posted photographs of girls he knew and asked others to rate their appearance, alongside deepfake material made using their photographs and video.
The case that was closed
Kyungin Ilbo reported that in October last year a complaint reached Hwaseong West Police Station alleging that someone was running what the publication described as a room for humiliating acquaintances. It said the station could not identify a suspect and therefore classified the case as unsolved and closed it. It said the student was subsequently identified as the suspect.
Kyungin Ilbo said it was the survivors that got the case reopened after they filed criminal complaints early this year.
How many
Police estimated the number of victims at about 20, according to Kyunghyang Shinmun. Kyungin Ilbo quoted a parent as saying the number confirmed through the accused’s own lawyer was more than 30.
The school
Without attributing the information to a named source, Kyungin Ilbo said it understood that a school violence committee had ordered the student to transfer to another school, and that he has since applied to leave education.
The paper quoted another parent as saying the committee met only after parents made an anonymous tip-off to the school, and that parents have had to arrange psychological support for their children themselves.
Another parent told Kyungin Ilbo their child “is living with the anxiety that someone around them may have been involved in the crime”, and feels “considerable fear” in everyday activity — using social media, going to school.
The school has not commented publicly, and Kyungin Ilbo does not report a response from it.
Not unusual
According to figures published by the National Police Agency in November 2025 and reported by the Korea Herald, teenagers are the largest group of suspects in South Korean deepfake sexual offences: about 62 per cent of those arrested for such offences were teenagers.
The same figures, as reported by the Korea Herald, recorded 3,557 people detained for cyber sexual violence between November 2024 and October 2025, with deepfake offences the largest single category at 1,553 cases, a rise of 47.8 per cent on the previous year.
Since October 2024, the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Crimes has made producing such material an offence whether or not it is distributed, carrying up to seven years’ imprisonment.