Man arrested for allegedly making posts mocking victims of Korea's deadliest disasters

A man has been arrested for allegedly posting thousands of online posts mocking victims and families of some of Korea’s deadliest recent disasters, including the Sewol ferry sinking, the Itaewon crowd crush and the Jeju Air crash, police said Sunday. 

He reportedly posted roughly 3,000 messages on major online forums between 2022 and this year, in which he claimed that the Sewol ferry sinking was "a staged fraud." He also described the passenger jet crash as "a scam exploiting the dead" and alleged that the Itaewon crowd crush was "a staged movie with dummy bodies," said the National Office of Investigation under the National Police Agency.

The suspect also repeatedly posted photographs from the disasters alongside the fabricated claims, all of which fueled hostility and hatred toward the victims' families.

“We have suffered severe psychological distress and humiliation from the suspect’s posts that denied the disasters,” the families told police. They added that the offenses were equivalent to a prolonged form of secondary victimization.

The recent arrest marks the third such case since the state police agency established a dedicated investigation unit for secondary offenses in July of last year. The unit was created to handle reports from bereaved families, improve relevant policies and regulations and investigate malicious online comments.

In January, the unit arrested another man in his 60s for repeatedly posting false claims online targeting victims of the Itaewon crowd crush and their bereaved families. He faced allegations of posting more than 700 videos and messages promoting conspiracy theories that described the accident as a "staged operation of a drug terror attack.” He reportedly referred to the victims’ bodies as “sex dolls.”

In April, police arrested another man for mocking victims and families of both the Sewol ferry and Itaewon accidents. Between 2021 and 2024, he reportedly posted more than 70 messages on domestic and overseas websites, including conspiracy theories alleging that "the same people who claimed to be families of Sewol victims later reappeared as families of Itaewon victims."

"The repeated dissemination of false information that exploits social disasters for mockery is a serious crime that falls outside the bounds of free expression," said Park Woo-hyeon, a cybercrime policy officer at the National Police Agency. "We will continue to hold accountable those who prey on the nation's pain and fuel hatred online."

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.

BY HAN CHAN-WOO [lee.soojung1@joongang.co.kr]