Taiwanese grad student charged with having nude photos of 82 underage girls

台研究生拍攝82名未成年女孩裸照

NTU graduate student charged with having photos of 82 underage girls and statutory rape of a girl under the age of 16


TAIPEI (Taiwan News) -- A graduate student at National Taiwan University (NTU) yesterday (April 11) was charged with possessing nude photographs of 82 minors and statutory rape of a girl under the age of 16, reported Apple Daily.

The 23-year-old man, identified as Lin Ho-chun (林和駿), has been charged with violating the Child and Youth Sexual Exploitation Prevention Act (兒童及少年性剝削防制條例) for tricking and blackmailing 82 underage girls to send him nude photos of themselves and violating Criminal Code (刑法) for luring an girl under the age of 16 to have sex with him.

Lin, who was last year admitted into the NTU Institute of Medical Device and Imaging, is suspected to have used the internet to disguise his identity and deceive 82 female middle school and elementary students into believing they were having a romantic relationship with him and submit nude photos to him. And in the case of at least seven girls, if they did not continue to send such obscene photos, he would threaten to release the photos to the public online.

According to a police investigation, Lin would create a false identity and upload a fake profile photo on social media platforms such as LINE, BeeTalk and Facebook Messenger to lure underage girls. He would convince the girls that they were in love and take a role as a nurturing older brother to get them to let their guard down, and would even begin to use the terms husband and wife in the text messages.

Lin would deceive his victims by using head shots of other men and even send nude photos of other males as well. In some cases, Lin not only exchanged photos with the girls but even invited them to go on outdoor nude shoots. In the case of at least one girl, he lured her to an outdoor shoot during which he molested her and tried to force her to have sex.

In November of last year, police received reports from teenage girls that a man was threatening to post nude photos of them on the internet if they did not continue to provide new nude photos of themselves. Teenage girls also reported a man who used the aliases 鬼仙 and 天仙呆 to post nude photos of young girls on online forums such as EYNY, ck101, Centurys, so the Taipei District Prosecutor's Office began an investigation.

During a search of Lin's residence, investigators on his computer found 121 folders containing 120 Gigabytes worth of nude photos of young women, 81 of whom were minors and one who had just turned 18. Lin appears to have begun collecting nude photos of minors in 2013, with a separate folder created for each victim which were delineated by their name, age, school, body rating and date taken.

Lin, who confessed to the crimes, said that his personal relationships were bad and he often felt inferior. When he found that he could make a lot of "girlfriends" on the internet while still maintaining anonymity and compensate for his flaws, and soon became more and more obsessed and could not quit.

Before gaining admittance to NTU via it's "special admission quota" program, Lin last year had attended Tzu Chi University of Science and Technology in Hualien. Lin is reportedly from a wealthy family, with both parents having studied medicine.

Lin could face more than seven years in prison and a fine of up to NT$5 million for his crimes.