[Exclusive] Police “We will consider reinvestigating the kiss room notification operator”

[After the report] When there was criticism of the lukewarm investigation attitude... After the Hankyoreh 21 investigative report, we decided to look again at the accusation case.

It was belatedly confirmed that the police called in the operator of ‘Kiss Room Alert’ (refer to No. 1529), a prostitution brokerage platform, to investigate, but did not forward the case. Kiss Room Notifier is a new membership-based online prostitution agency that receives money from sex buyers and sends kiss room reservation information through messengers such as Telegram. However, criticism has been raised that the police may be conducting a lukewarm investigation.

Not forwarded, not booked… ‘Roh ○’ operator disappears and investigation is suspended

According to the coverage of the Hankyoreh 21 investigation team on September 9, 2024, the Seoul Metropolitan Government Dashitogether Counseling Center (Dashitogether Center), which monitors prostitution establishments, reported the representative kiss room notifications ‘No○’ and ‘Let’s○’ to the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency in November 2023 on charges of soliciting and advertising prostitution. To enable prostitution buyers to engage in prostitution in kiss rooms, two Kiss Room Notifiers are accused of crawling (gathering data) information on the work of prostitutes posted on prostitution brokerage sites and sending it to prostitution brokers for prostitution brokerage and advertisements.

Seoul Jongam Police Station, which was assigned to this case, confirmed the identity of the operator of ‘Let’s○’ and summoned the operator for questioning, but sent it back in May 2024, saying, “It is difficult to say that ‘Let’s○’ is an advertisement as it only conveys Internet information.” The police accepted the claim of the operator of ‘Let’s ○’, who denied the charges, saying, “We do not know whether prostitution takes place at the establishment or whether members visit the establishment and engage in prostitution.” In the case of ‘No○’, the most famous kissing room notification, the operator surnamed Jo (39) is currently in hiding and the police have been unable to secure a new identity, so the investigation has been suspended.

In particular, in the case of ‘Noh ○’, it was confirmed that in addition to the complaint filed by the Together Again Center, the investigation was requested to the police on two more occasions. In June 2023 and June 2024, white hacker Choi Jun-young (pseudonym) identified Cho, the operator of ‘Noh ○’, based on information he accidentally exposed during the server expansion and relocation process, and filed a complaint with the police asking for an investigation, saying, “‘Noh ○’ is arranging illegal prostitution.” However, both Ilsan West Police Station and Ilsan East Police Station in Gyeonggi Province, which received this complaint, did not even file a case, saying, “It is impossible to know whether paid members actually engaged in prostitution.”

Kissing room notifications are clearly subject to punishment under the current Prostitution Punishment Act, falling under the crime of procuring and advertising. Regarding the crime of prostitution, the Supreme Court stated, “It is sufficient to have an act of arrangement that connects the intention of the parties to engage in prostitution and leads to prostitution between the parties even without the intervention of the procurer.” (Supreme Court ruling 2020Do3626)Lee Seung-ho, a lawyer at Daeryun Law Firm, also said, “If it is confirmed that prostitution is actually taking place by the kiss room notification informing the work information of prostitutes, the operator of the intermediate platform can also be charged with prostitution brokerage.”

Subject to clear punishment under current law

In particular, the crime of notifying kissing rooms is established regardless of whether the sex buyers engaged in prostitution. The Supreme Court ruled that “the crime of soliciting prostitution is an independent principal crime in itself, regardless of the existence of the principal offender of the crime of prostitution,” and “if the procurer performed the above-mentioned act of arrangement, the crime of soliciting prostitution is established even if the prostitution buyer did not actually have the intention to engage in prostitution.” (Supreme Court decision 2020Do3626)

In the end, the police's refusal to forward or book the two kissing room alerts can only be seen as a lack of will to investigate. All three police stations said in common, ‘It is not confirmed whether prostitution is actually taking place.’ However, if you look at the Kiss Room Notification secret bulletin board and various prostitution communities, it is not difficult to see that reviews are posted every day about prostitution by reserving a kiss room through the Kiss Room Notification. Kissing room notifiers such as ‘No○’ and ‘Let’s○’ commonly operate secret bulletin boards or secret Telegram chat rooms for paid members, where paid members leave explicit reviews of prostitution and are graded based on the level of skinship with women. Together Again Center and Mr. Choi also collected and delivered to the police data containing reviews of prostitution and slang used in kissing rooms.

Such posts related to sexual exploitation posted on secret bulletin boards can already be subject to punishment under current law. Lee Byung-jin, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, proposed amendments to the Information and Communications Network Act and the Prostitution Punishment Act in July 2024, which clearly prohibit the sharing of specific information related to prostitution, such as posting evaluations and reviews of prostitutes. These amendments are currently pending in the National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information, Broadcasting and Communications Committee (Division and Defense) and the Legislation and Judiciary Committee. However, in a legal review report on this amendment on August 26, 2024, Kim Geon-o, a senior expert member of the National Assembly's Science and Defense Committee, expressed the opinion that "(even without a revision to the law) (sharing information related to prostitution) can already be punished under the current prostitution punishment law."

Despite this situation, criticism is being raised about the fact that the police did not even book illegal recordings of prostitution that were shared on ‘No○’s’ secret bulletin board or Telegram chat room. Kwon Gyeong-ran, head of the surveillance business team at the Together Center again, said, “It appears that the police judged the crime of soliciting prostitution too narrowly in legal terms and did not transfer the case. Prostitutes were punished for simply posting advertisements on SNS, while the kiss room notification was released too easily.” “The kiss room notification is meaningful in that sex buyers can directly jump into prostitution brokerage. If the kiss room notification is popularized, it will create an environment in which prostitution is easy.” “That’s the problem,” he said.

“Reexamination of legal principles related to charges of soliciting and promoting prostitution”

The police announced that they would belatedly look into the accusation again after Hankyoreh 21 published an investigative report accusing the kissing room alert. A police official said, “It is difficult to prove the charges because prostitution takes place secretly in kissing rooms,” but added, “We will re-examine the legal principles of Kissroom Alert’s charges of arranging and promoting prostitution and consider a reinvestigation.”

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