Taichung, Taiwan (October 3, 2025)— Prosecutors have filed charges against a male student surnamed Hong, a graduate of National Taiwan University’s College of Law, for orchestrating one of Taiwan’s largest online sexual exploitation cases, involving over 300 men and teenagers.
According to the Taichung District Prosecutor’s Office, Hong used voice changers, female avatars, and scripted chats to impersonate women online. He lured male netizens and minors into engaging in indecent video exchanges, secretly recorded them, and then distributed or sold the footage. Investigators later recovered 6,918 sexual images stored across Hong’s hard drives, USB devices, and cloud platforms.
Pattern of Exploitation
Authorities revealed that since 2022, Hong sought out victims via social media and dating apps such as Instagram, disguising himself as a woman to gain trust. He induced the victims to participate in explicit video calls, capturing 289 adult men and 32 teenagers in the process.
Investigators discovered that Hong not only recorded but also sold illicit material through Telegram groups and the platform X (formerly Twitter). He priced the images and videos between NT$200 and NT$2,500 each. Furthermore, he reproduced and circulated files across multiple online drives, including Google Drive and MEGA, as well as physical devices, significantly increasing the spread of the illegal content.
Legal Action and Detention
The scandal came to light in late 2024, when several victims filed formal complaints. A coordinated investigation by the Criminal Investigation Bureau, under Prosecutor Guo Kui, led to a raid on Hong’s Taipei residence on May 14 this year. Prosecutors said Hong had already earned NT$125,000 from the illicit trade, which he later surrendered.
Initially, the court granted Hong bail, but after prosecutors appealed, citing risks of collusion with accomplices and tampering with witnesses, the decision was overturned. Hong was taken back into custody shortly after graduating from NTU.
Prosecutor’s Statement
The prosecution stressed that Hong’s actions inflicted irreversible harm on victims due to the rapid and anonymous spread of digital content online. Officials described his conduct as “extremely malicious” and said it reflected a clear disregard for the law.
Hong now faces multiple charges, including violations of the Child and Youth Sexual Exploitation Prevention Act, illegal reproduction and distribution of sexual content, and other cybercrime-related offenses. Prosecutors have urged the court to hand down a severe sentence in light of the scale of the case.