An official with the Seoul Metropolitan Police’s Cybercrime Unit, Seo Sang-hyuk, said the suspects took pictures for months and tried to blackmail some guests by threatening to release their own videos, but the attempts to blackmail them failed to get any money.
Seo did not provide details on how the suspects installed the cameras at the hotel in Yangpyeong, near the capital, Seoul.
However, a local newspaper reported that the suspects bribed a hotel employee to install small cameras on computer screens in every room while they were being cleaned.
Prosecutors, who received the case from police after the arrests earlier this month, did not immediately comment on Friday on whether they had indicted any of the suspects.
It is noteworthy that South Korea has struggled in recent years to deal with perpetrators who have installed small cameras in hotels, bathrooms and other places to film sexual footage or nudity and spread the footage through illegal websites.
In 2018, thousands of women marched in the South Korean capital to demand stronger government action to combat the spread of hidden camera images, which they said made women live in constant anxiety and distress.
The National Police Agency recently told Justice Party MP Jang Hee-young that the police have investigated about 30,000 cases of crime related to hidden cameras over the past five years.
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