A man in his 20s accused of carrying out a revenge-for-hire attack in Incheon arrives at the Incheon District Court on May 18 to attend a pretrial detention hearing.YONHAP
A suspected ringleader of a revenge-for-hire group — which has been smearing food on victims’ front doors or handing out fake brochures alleging victims are sex offenders — has been identified as a university student in their 20s. One of the victims included a restaurant that gained attention after a visit by a BTS member, according to an indictment.
The JoongAng Ilbo found Tuesday that the alleged ringleader’s occupation was listed as a student in an indictment filed by the Incheon District Prosecutors’ Office. The student faces charges of property damage and trespassing, according to the indictment.
“The student decided around April to make money through revenge-for-hire crimes,” prosecutors wrote in the indictment. They accused the student of posting advertisements on several illegal promotional channels on Telegram with messages including, “We are a revenge-for-hire service,” “We are available even on public holidays,” and “We do not contact applicants who look likely to skip out on payment.”
The student then recruited others to carry out the attacks, prosecutors said.
The student allegedly ran his illegal service through June, slightly later than similar revenge-for-hire attacks that occurred in February and March. This has raised the possibility that the scheme was inspired by those earlier cases.
Investigators also suspect that the student, initially believed to be the ringleader, may have instead operated as a subcontractor under the direction of a higher-level organization.
Prosecutors last month indicted two other people in their 20s who allegedly carried out attacks under the student’s direction. Another person who committed revenge-for-hire crimes at the student’s instruction was indicted earlier and sentenced to six months in prison by the Incheon District Court on July 24.
The methods they conducted, detailed in the indictment, were particularly malicious.
The group smeared gochujang (red chili paste), eggs, flour and corn syrup on victims’ front doors, spray-painted the doors or scattered flyers falsely claiming that the victims had criminal records for rape, assault and other offenses.
An image of a private revenge-for-hire crime shared on TelegramSCREEN CAPTURE
On April 30, the group spray-painted the front door of a victim’s home in Yeongcheon, North Gyeongsang, white and scattered several sheets of A4 paper containing abusive accusations about the victim, including claims that the person beat their parents.
The attacks extended beyond the Seoul metropolitan area, including Incheon, Suwon, Gwacheon and Goyang in Gyeonggi, to Busan, Gangneung in Gangwon and Yeongcheon and Mungyeong in North Gyeongsang. The victims even included a person affiliated with a restaurant in Aewol-eup, Jeju, that gained attention after a visit by a BTS member.
The group carried out 10 such attacks and received between 1.5 million won and 2.5 million won ($1,100 and $1,770) per case, according to prosecutors.
The case drew widespread attention after President Lee Jae Myung shared a police report about the crimes on social media on May 15.
“Revenge-for-hire is a serious crime for both the person who requests it and the person who carries it out,” Lee said.
Police are continuing to investigate possible higher-level figures behind the operation as well as those who commissioned the attacks, with metropolitan investigation units at regional police agencies leading the probes.
BY KIM JEONG-JAE, BYUN MIN-CHUL [kim.jiye@joongang.co.kr]
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.
