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Despite the law enforcement authorities' warning of a stern response to sexually explicit deepfakes, perpetrators here are boasting about their crimes on social media and online communities, confident that they "cannot be caught."

At an online community dubbed "Deepfake Countermeasures Headquarters," users are sharing deepfake experiences and information on how to deal with police investigations and possible punishment.

Among the posts is content that acknowledges the criminal nature of the activity.

"I made a deepfake with my ex-girlfriend's picture, but I never told her and she would have no idea. I became pretty famous (among deepfake users)," an online user wrote.

Another said, "I ran a chat room where users share photos of their acquaintances. Is it a problem if you are a high school student?"

At the same time, users also expressed confidence that it would not lead to punishment, mocking the government and media for "making a fuss" out of deepfake crimes.

"It's not easy to identify people who entered the room, but we can't investigate them by organizing what they did in the room," an online user wrote, encouraging and comforting other perpetrators. "(Deepfake) production has no basis for punishment. What we did is not illegal because it was never legislated in the first place. Don't be intimidated for no reason."

Many agreed that "those who stay in the room should feel safe," citing the case of Cho Ju-bin, the mastermind of the Nth Room, a notorious online sexual exploitation and blackmail ring. Only Cho was sentenced to 42 years in prison in October 2020 while none of the Nth Room users who produced, shared and viewed sex abuse materials via Telegram were punished.

According to a report by Security Hero, a cybersecurity company, the number of online deepfake videos surged by 550 percent year-on-year to 95,820 last year.

In addition, 98 percent of all deepfake videos were sexually explicit, and 99 percent of the victims were women. In particular, Koreans are the main targets of deepfake pornography. The nationality of deepfake victims was overwhelmingly Korean with 53 percent.

Notably, more than 500 schools nationwide are known to have been affected by deepfake sex crimes. Also, a chat room where users share and mock profiles of reporters who cover and report deepfake sex crimes was created.

Crime experts highlighted the low level of punishment for digital sex crimes.

"The related laws have been revised since the Nth Room and 'Doctor' incidents, but there is still no punishment for possession or viewing (false videos) that are not proven to be the purpose of dissemination. Many cases of punishment are released on probation, and the perpetrators think that probation is not even punishment," said Lee Soo-jung, a criminal psychology professor at Kyonggi University.

In addition to strengthening punishment for those who produce or distribute sexual exploitation content, she suggested regulations on platforms used as crime windows as a more fundamental solution.

"Since 2022, laws that place responsibility on platforms (where sexually exploitative content is circulated) have begun to be legislated, mainly in Europe, but there are still no punishment regulations in Korea, only monitoring," she said.

The French government arrested Telegram boss and founder Pavel Durov last week for allegedly ignoring the French judiciary's request for cooperation in preventing the illegal activities of platform users.

In response, the Korea Communications Standards Commission recently sent a letter to the French investigation authorities requesting urgent cooperation to cope with deepfake sex crimes on Telegram.

Telegram has never responded to the Korean government's requests for cooperation in investigating sex crimes.