Sentenced to one and a half years for operating the world's largest child sexual exploitation video trading website, and two years for hiding the proceeds of crime...... The heinous child sex offender will be released from prison this year.
In March 2018, South Korean police arrested Son Jeong-woo, the operator of Welcome To Vidio (W2V), the world's largest child sexual exploitation video trading website.
For more than two years and eight months from July 2015 to March 2018, Sun Zhengyu operated a dark web that can only be accessed with a specific browser, W2V. The site has 220,000 child sexual exploitation videos in circulation, reached 1.28 million users, and generated $370,000 in virtual currency revenue. Even the children who were killed were babies as young as 6 months old!
Compared with the Nth room incident, which caused the world's attention, Sun Zhengyu's crimes can be said to be more than exceeding, but the South Korean court's verdict against him is chilling.
Sun Zhengyu, the operator of the world's largest child sexual exploitation video trading website, was sentenced to only one and a half years in prison.
In April 2020, Sun Zhengyu was released from prison after completing his sentence, at which time the U.S. Department of Justice wanted to extradite Sun Zhengyu for trial and issued an extradition detention order. However, South Korean courts have repeatedly struggled with the question of "whether to extradite Son Zhengyu to the United States."
Since W2V is a worldwide website, not only Korean users but also American users have downloaded child sexual exploitation videos through it.
As a result, a federal grand jury indicted Son in August 2018 on six counts and nine on suspicion of publishing child obscenity, but it was put on hold because Son was serving a trial in South Korea at the time. After Sun Zhengyu was released from prison in 2020, the United States filed an extradition request with a South Korean court on suspicion that Sun Zhengyu was "hiding criminal proceeds".
In the United States, men who upload videos on W2V are sentenced to 22 years in prison, and men who buy and download child sexual exploitation videos are sentenced to 5 to 15 years in prison. It is conceivable that if Sun Zhengyu is extradited to the United States for trial, he will be subject to multiple sentences.
In order to extradite his son who had just been released from prison to the United States, Sun Zhengyu's father staged a drama of "righteous annihilation". He personally reported that Sun Zhengyu used his information to open virtual accounts, trade and hide the proceeds of crime. Mr. Sun's father said that South Korea had not yet opened an investigation into Mr. Sun's crimes, so he could not be extradited to the United States.
As he wished, a South Korean court rejected the U.S. extradition request.
"According to the Extradition of Criminals Act, crimes that have been punished in domestic courts cannot be re-punished," the South Korean court said. If Son is extradited to the United States at this stage, it will affect South Korea's investigation of W2V members. Not extraditing the offender to the United States is a reasonable judgment to fulfill the contract in this case. Sovereign states can exercise their rights primarily and, if necessary, actively cooperate with the United States. It is hoped that in future investigations, the perpetrators will actively assist and accept proper punishment. ”
What a "justified punishment"!
Under the trial of a South Korean court, Son Jung-woo was sentenced to two years in prison on suspicion of hiding the proceeds of crime and will be released from prison this year......
In fact, the South Korean people are very active about the extradition of Son Zhengyu to the United States, because everyone wants the perpetrators of this heinous crime of child sexual exploitation to be punished, and everyone knows that the South Korean courts cannot do this. Therefore, when they learned that the South Korean court made a decision to dismiss it, the South Korean people were very angry, and even more angry when they learned that Son Zhengyu was only sentenced to two years.
After learning that Sun Zhengyu was about to be released from prison this year, Korean netizens said:
"Why is our country so tolerant of men, is it because all men are at the same level", "This kind of person is actually the person our country loves, his face is about to be lost, please change your nationality", "Our country will always be lenient with male criminals", "I can't understand the sentencing at all, and I desperately hope that the model taxi will become a reality", "Just die out, this country", "Who can inform the United States that this guy is out of prison"......
Sun Zhengyu, who used sex to exploit minors around the world to earn money, spent only three and a half years in prison, and he was only 28 years old when he was released from prison this year......