A Taipei man pretending to be a female modeling agent on social media has been detained for allegedly soliciting over 100 underage girls and women into taking lewd videos of themselves for his personal gratification, Tainan police said Friday.
The suspect in his 40s, identified only by his surname Chang (張), was arrested in Taipei in August, Tainan City Police Department’s 5th Precinct told CNA.
Officers seized computer hard drives that contained videos of over 100 different victims, ranging in age from 10-70 years old, the precinct said.
The case first came to light in March, when one of the man’s victims in Tainan reported the matter to the local authorities.
Using fake profile photos on Facebook, Instagram and Azar, Chang pretended to be a female modeling agent looking for women interested in working for a modeling agency, police said.
In order to get the girls and women to let their guard down, Chang used an audio synchronizer to sound like a female during interviews, which were carried out virtually without him ever showing his face.
Chang told the victims the video interviews had to be conducted in the nude, under the pretext that made it easier to create model comp cards of them, while also promising an hourly wage of between NT$2,500 (US$78.12) and NT$3,500 if they were lucky enough to be chosen by the modeling agency, police said.
The interviews were also secretly recorded without the subject’s knowledge and Chang later used those recordings to demand they send him lewd videos or photos of themselves or he would post naked images of them online.
According to police, there is no evidence Chang sold or distributed the images online and the working theory is that his actions, which occurred over a five year period, were for self-gratification.
Meanwhile, police urged other victims to come forward, as only a few of the more than 100 women identified have so far filed a report, while assuring them their identities will remain confidential.
Chang is currently being investigated for a number of offenses, including fraud, infringement of privacy, child and youth sexual exploitation, coercion and intimidation.
Tainan prosecutors have obtained a court order to detain the suspect while the investigation is ongoing, according to police.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel