True crime documentaries are never for the faint of heart, according to Netflix's latest offering. Two online sex trafficking rings that emerged in South Korea only a few years ago are chronicled in Cyber Hell: Exposing an Internet Horror. The leaders of these organizations manipulated their victims by accessing personal pictures and videos, utilizing them as blackmail as they demanded progressively more sexual and violent content from them. The incident of the iceberg is this case represents the tip of a morally depraved iceberg that can be imagined. As the Doctor's Room and the Nth Room are focusing their attacks on South Korea, there is a chance that you haven't heard about one of the most grisly internet cases to have ever happened. Here's what you need to know about this deeply disturbing true crime case before you watch it on Netflix.

What Was The Nth Room? What Was The Doctor’s Room?

Before you press play on Netflix, this is the very thing that you want to realize about this profoundly upsetting genuine wrongdoing case. A simple way to describe the Nth Room is that it unfolded between 2018 and 2020 in South Korea in the form of a slavery ring. There was almost exclusively communication over Telegram, a cloud-based instant messaging service that provides encrypted messaging, and the names of the eight groups were derived from their ordinal numbers. Several violent and degrading videos and images of women and young girls were blackmailed into being sent. Images were then used to advertise and sell to particular demographics. In terms of sexual exploitation, the Nth Room was on par with some of the worst schemes imaginable. Typical methods of finding victims for the organization included petty theft and kidnapping. As a preemptive measure, they would gain access to the private photos and social media accounts of their prospective victims, and threaten to reveal the photos to friends, family, and colleagues if they did not cooperate. This was more disturbing than the other recruitment method. There were others who were recruited by job offers. In exchange for seemingly harmless tasks that would get them a payday, they would receive money before the request escalated. Within a short period of time, victims were requested to engage in sexual acts or acts of violence against themselves. However, the Nth Room created the most horror by tracking the location of every individual in the world. It is believed that some of these abusers, who were able to find the location of their victims, would track them down to try and get revenge. In order to prevent the crimes from becoming public, the group filmed the assaults as they occurred. This was the first of those Telegram-based sexual slavery rings to appear, and the ring was run by a user who posted to Telegram with a nickname that sounded similar to "God God." Approximately a year later in 2019, a copycat user started to appear. As the group was nicknamed the Doctor's Room, he was referred to as the "Doctor". Using the personal information provided by applicants, this user would track down and proceed to blackmail his targets, by posting part-time job offers on Twitter, which used their personal information to track them down and pursue them. A recent study estimates that approximately 260,000 people paid up to £1,200 for access to this pornography. As a result of this crime ring, 100 women and 26 children were forced into sexual slavery in order to survive.

How Did Authorities Learn About The Nth Room And The Doctor’s Room?

Media coverage and everyday citizens play a key role in this case. These child pornography groups were reported to the police by several men, but authorities did not act on those reports at first. In the absence of more information, it is unclear whether this failure was due to a lack of understanding of the situation or a lack of credibility of the reports. Two South Korean newspapers, Seoul Shinmun and Sisa Journal engaged in reporting on Telegram's distribution of child pornography. However, the Electronic Times was the first news source to report specifically on the Nth Room in August 2019. Over 5 million people signed an online petition demanding the police disclose the identity of the doctor who committed the crime. The story immediately sparked outrage in the public sphere. Who else could be a devil, if not (he)? According to the petition, (he) should stand on a photo line with his face exposed. "Human rights are an unnecessary luxury for someone who is indifferent to other people's humiliation," read the petition.

Who Was Arrested For The Nth Room And The Doctor’s Room?

n this sex ring case, the two most prominent suspects were apprehended. God God himself is the first suspect. He claimed that he would not be able to face charges because he didn't use his own phone and only used gift vouchers that could not be tracked. In that regard, he was wrong. The sentence for Moon Hyung-Wook was 34 years in prison in April 2021. Next, there was the Doctor. The Doctor was revealed to be Cho Joo-bin in March of 2020. A jury found him guilty of blackmail and sexual harassment, and he was sentenced to 40 years in prison. Aside from these major figures, Mr. Jeon was arrested as the "Watchman," the user who made the Nth Room popular. As a consequence of his crimes, Mr. Jeon was jailed for three years and six months. One year was given to Mr. Shin, an operator at Nth Room who took over the organization from God God. There is no way that these arrests represent all the criminals who were responsible for the Nth Room and the Doctor's Room. Both groups possessed elaborate systems of administrators, harassment providers, recruiters, and blackmailers. Not to mention those who subscribed to these groups that sold child pornography. In any case, the story ends with the two biggest names in this criminal case behind bars.  
By Rashmi Goel