[News Culture] A shadowy criminal market built around outsourcing revenge is spreading across South Korea. Orders are placed through encrypted messaging apps, while hired operatives travel across the country to intimidate people they have never met. The attacks no longer stop with the original target, with relatives, homes and workplaces increasingly drawn into campaigns involving defamatory leaflets, vandalism and even the dumping of human waste.
KBS1 investigative program ‘Chase 60 Minutes’ examines how these revenge-for-hire networks recruit operatives, obtain sensitive personal information and turn private disputes into prolonged campaigns of fear.
A Vendetta That Followed the Entire Family
Kim Dae-sik, whose name has been changed, discovered one day that his apartment building had been covered in defamatory flyers. The leaflets contained fabricated allegations along with the names, phone numbers and resident registration numbers of his family members. The harassment soon spread beyond his home, with similar materials appearing outside his sister’s residence and at his father’s workplace.
Surveillance footage showed that the man carrying out the attacks had no personal connection to Kim. His only demand was that Kim withdraw an ongoing lawsuit. When Kim refused, his private information was circulated through Telegram and the harassment continued for months. Kim said the ordeal destroyed his sense of safety, leaving him unable to meet people’s eyes or move through daily life without fear. He eventually sought psychiatric treatment as the pressure took an increasingly severe toll.
Paid Operatives Recruited as ‘Special Forces’
The production team tracked down Cho Min-su, a pseudonym used for a former operative who had taken part in revenge-for-hire assignments. Cho said the people dispatched to carry out attacks were known within the network as “special forces,” while organizers, recruiters and field operatives handled separate parts of the operation. Although he initially believed the offenses would bring little more than a minor penalty, he was ultimately sentenced to prison.
Telegram channels recruited operatives with promises of high pay and a low risk of arrest, sending them to locations across the country, including Jeju and Busan. The investigation also uncovered efforts to recruit minors, including posts seeking children below the age of criminal responsibility and photographs allegedly proving that assignments had been completed. Min Woo-sik, another pseudonym, was 17 when he became involved after assuming his age would protect him from serious punishment. The organization deliberately exploited that belief, using the perceived limits of juvenile law to draw younger recruits into its criminal operations.
Clients Can Become the Next Targets
Han Woo-jin, whose name has also been changed, contacted a revenge-for-hire operator after losing money in an online secondhand marketplace scam. During the consultation, the company demanded a large upfront payment. When Han decided not to proceed, the tone shifted immediately and threatening messages began arriving.
The operators had obtained contact information that Han had never provided, using it to pressure him after he withdrew his request. A service that promoted itself as a way to protect victims instead placed its own potential clients at risk. The investigation found that these organizations were less interested in resolving disputes than in extracting money, and that clients, targets and intermediaries could all become objects of intimidation when profits were at stake.
Stolen Personal Data Becomes a Weapon
The spread of revenge-for-hire crime has been enabled in part by a steady supply of leaked personal information. In March, an individual who allegedly gained employment at a food-delivery platform’s call center under false pretenses was found to have extracted around 1,200 customer addresses and supplied them for criminal use.
Concerns have also extended into the public sector, following cases involving unauthorized searches by a National Health Insurance Service employee and the exposure of thousands of records in a cyberattack targeting the Ministry of the Interior and Safety. With personal data increasingly being used as a weapon, authorities say they are establishing dedicated investigative teams and strengthening inspections, while lawmakers move to address gaps in the existing legal framework.
A Criminal Market That Continues to Grow
New groups continue to emerge as the online infrastructure behind revenge-for-hire schemes becomes more sophisticated. Recruitment, payment and execution can all be coordinated remotely, allowing organizers to remain removed from the attacks while operatives carry out assignments across the country. As the networks grow more organized, the range of potential victims is also widening.
‘Chase 60 Minutes’ takes an in-depth look at the people behind these operations, the victims left living in fear and the stolen personal information sustaining the business. The episode, titled ‘We’ll Get Revenge for You: Inside the Revenge-for-Hire Business,’ airs Aug. 7 at 10 p.m. on KBS1.
Reported by News Culture M.J._mj94070777@nc.press
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