Philippine police arrest South Korean YouTuber accused of fathering child with 14-year-old girl
According to Hankook Ilbo, Philippine authorities said the suspect, identified only as 'A', was detained on June 11 in Cagayan de Oro City.
The arrest followed a tip-off from the country's cybercrime investigators, who flagged a YouTube video that raised suspicions of child exploitation.
Police rescued the teenage girl, referred to as 'B', along with her two-month-old baby, believed to have been fathered by the suspect.
The case is being pursued under multiple Philippine laws, including the Anti-Rape Law and the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act.
Investigators say the man had used a YouTube channel purportedly created to help underprivileged Filipino children, soliciting donations from South Korean viewers under the guise of charity work.
However, authorities believe the channel masked exploitative behaviour.
Online crime-monitoring group Crime Net has claimed that the man is behind a YouTube account that regularly posted videos of children in poor communities, a practice critics have labelled 'poverty porn'.
The suspect's final video, uploaded on the day of his arrest, reportedly included a reference to the underage girl's baby: 'Born on April 24. My first baby.'
Crime Net also pointed out that some of the videos had depicted the girl's pregnancy, with commenters now questioning whether the suspect was documenting his own crimes.
'This is horrifying,' wrote one viewer. Others posted comments such as 'Do not donate' and 'I saw the devil,' reflecting the widespread outrage online.
The Korean Embassy in the Philippines has not issued a statement, but the case has sparked strong reactions in both countries, with calls for tighter oversight of overseas-based online content creators.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Star
20 hours ago
- The Star
Russia counters Ukrainian drones by turning off Russians' mobile Internet
Katya's phone suddenly refused to provide the basics she needed to drive home to Moscow from St. Petersburg. She, her partner and countless others were unable to go online, cut off from their apps for things such as maps, banking, paying road tolls and buying fuel. There was no warning, no hint how widespread the outage was, no clue how long it would last – but it wasn't a surprise, either. Russia's mobile Internet networks now have frequent blackouts because of the war with Ukraine. Since last month, authorities have shut those networks down every day in various parts of the country, in unpredictable patterns, for hours at a time. The goal is to try to thwart attacks by Ukrainian drones that analysts say have used mobile networks for navigation. It is a big disruption in a country where smartphones provide the only online access for millions of people. The government regularly touts an array of online services, including filing tax returns and applying for jobs, and President Vladimir Putin claimed this year that Russia was 'a step ahead of many other nations'. Even so, 'they can turn off the Internet,' said Katya, 32. She described how the government had encouraged reliance on apps and web services – and then exercised control over Internet access – as a 'digital gulag'. Like others interviewed, she asked to be identified only by her first name out of fear for her safety. She and her partner made it home from their recent weekend getaway, after struggling with a partially downloaded map and phoning her partner's mother to top up their debit card to pay for gas. The Russian government has a record of restricting online freedoms, including trying to block the country's most popular messaging app and throttling YouTube. But the mobile Internet shutdowns are the collateral damage of war, a response to Ukraine's spectacular drone attacks on long-range bombers at Russian bases June 1. Cellphones use parallel mobile networks, one for calls and another for the data used by phone apps – or drones. The Internet blackouts shut down the data network, but calls still go through. Wireless connections, which do not depend on mobile networks, can allow phones to stay online. Day-to-day orders to shut down the mobile Internet come from regional officials responding to reported drone intrusions, rather than from Moscow, according to documents viewed by The New York Times. The Russian communications ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 'The Kremlin has been asking regional authorities to put up a defence against the drones – there's nothing else they can do but turn the Internet off,' said Mikhail Klimarev, head of the Internet Protection Society, an exiled Russian digital rights group. The threat of drones also regularly shuts down Russian airports for hours. About 300 flights were cancelled in Moscow in one weekend alone. By late this month, the cellular Internet was down every day, for at least a few hours, in some part of at least 73 of Russia's 83 regions, according to a tally by Na Svyazi, a group of volunteers living abroad that monitors Internet access in Russia. Yelena, who lives in Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia, said that her daughter commuted to and from school by bus, paying her way with a transport card, but that the system didn't work during an outage. A few times, Yelena said, she has had to wire the fare to the bus driver's phone. Russians first experienced such shutdowns in the early months of the war, but they were limited to the areas bordering Ukraine. This year, authorities switched off mobile Internet in Moscow for a few days before the annual Victory Day parade in May, a major event for Putin, who was hosting several world leaders, including China's leader, Xi Jinping. That outage exposed Muscovites' reliance on apps for contactless payments, taxis, car sharing, food delivery and shopping, but discontent was fairly muted. 'The regions used to be wary of potential public repercussions and had not resorted to such shutdowns,' Sarkis Darbinian, a Russian lawyer and Internet expert who lives in exile, told the Times. The lack of protests in Moscow gave regional authorities the signal that 'you can just turn the Internet off' without causing a backlash, he said. After the Ukrainian attacks June 1, the shutdowns began to afflict the vast breadth of the country. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, blamed the inconveniences around the Victory Day parade on 'a dangerous neighbour', an apparent reference to Ukraine. When he was pressed recently about more widespread shutdowns, he said, 'Everything that's linked to ensuring public safety is justified.' Internet blackouts have hit e-commerce companies and consumers most directly, although the scale of the economic impact is unclear. They have also hampered businesses not usually associated with phone apps. In the northwestern city of Pskov, a municipally owned heating company complained last month that it had not been able to finish repairs on a pipeline on time because of the outages. The Internet shutdowns have become so frequent and widespread that they have given rise to online memes and songs. In Rostov-on-Don, Pavel Osipyan, a media personality, released a music video making light of the inconveniences. 'How can you tell you're from Rostov without saying it?' he rapped. 'Show me one bar for the Internet.' In Izhevsk, a city known for weapons production about 800 miles from Ukraine, mobile Internet has often been turned off since June 1. Arina, 23, said residents there had been calling emergency services, looking for an explanation, only to be told that it was a safety measure and that they should be patient. The precautions do not always work. In the middle of one shutdown, Ukrainian drones hit a factory in Izhevsk that makes surface-to-air missiles, killing three people and injuring scores more. No air-raid alert was issued while mobile Internet was down, leaving locals unsure what was happening. Another day, Arina was at home when she said she heard an air-raid siren. She had no idea what was going on: No one could post from the scene. 'The government keeps mum or says everything is fine, but everyone can see things are not fine,' she said. Yekaterina Mizulina, head of the pro-Kremlin League for a Safe Internet, asked on social media this month why 'the Internet is being throttled, and the drones keep coming and coming.' Many people affected by the blackouts speak of resignation. Neighbors and friends are annoyed but seem to be taking the disruptions as a new norm. In the courthouses where Sofia, a law student from the southern city of Krasnodar, spends her afternoons, attorneys, their clients and families often chat about the outages, but their reaction tends to be that the shutdowns are just one more burden. 'They just laugh it off,' she said. Regions from Tula in the southwest to Omsk in Siberia have said recently that they will introduce public wireless Internet to allow residents to stay online when mobile networks go down. Shutdowns have reached the easternmost parts of Russia, which have not been hit by drones, prompting some to question the official rationale. Artyom, a remote technology worker from Khabarovsk, 15 miles from the Chinese border, expressed concern that the blackouts could be a part of the Kremlin's strategy to restrict information. He called it 'a very convenient lie' to blame the drone threat. 'Drones don't make it to Khabarovsk,' he said. 'I don't see any connection here.' – ©2025 The New York Times Company This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Malay Mail
20 hours ago
- Malay Mail
Singapore to tighten cybersecurity law amid surge in state-linked hacking threats
SINGAPORE, July 29 — Critical infrastructure operators in Singapore will soon be required to report suspected advanced persistent threat (APT) attacks under new measures introduced in an amended Cybersecurity Act. The move, reported by The Straits Times, was announced by Minister for Digital Development and Information Josephine Teo at a cybersecurity forum on Monday. She said the requirement — part of broader changes to the law — is expected to take effect later in 2025 and will mandate reporting to the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA). The amendment follows the recent July 18 disclosure of state-linked cyber-espionage activity by group UNC3886, believed by experts to be China-linked. It's among several APT actors whose targeting of Singapore's critical systems has surged more than four-fold between 2021 and 2024. 'If organisations suspect they've been targeted, they cannot and should not confront the attackers on their own,' said Teo during the fifth Operational Technology Cybersecurity Expert Panel forum. 'These requirements will support the early detection of APT activities, and enable CSA to take more timely actions, together with other government agencies, to defend CII owners against the attacks.' APT actors are often state-sponsored and operate with significant resources, using stealthy tools to infiltrate high-value networks, steal data, or disrupt essential services. Singapore's 11 critical information infrastructure (CII) sectors include energy, water, land transport, healthcare, and government systems. Other sectors are aviation, maritime, security and emergency services, banking and finance, maritime, as well as infocomm. The Act was previously amended in 2024 to expand CSA's oversight to cloud and supply chain risks. CII operators are now required to report not only direct attacks but also any disruption stemming from service providers or third parties. With the latest revision, temporary systems supporting major events — such as vaccine distribution or international summits — will also fall under CSA's purview. This marks the first time Singapore has publicly acknowledged specific APT threats. 'We want the public to know these threats are real,' said Teo, citing recent global incidents including a Ukrainian malware attack that cut heating to 600 homes, and a breach in Norway that caused a dam to release seven billion litres of water. 'The threats you face are no longer simple ransomware attacks. APTs have you in their sights,' she warned CII operators. In response to the heightened threat level, CSA has convened a closed-door briefing with CII leaders and is ramping up collaboration across sectors. On July 29, the agency also signed a memorandum of collaboration with ST Engineering to jointly develop cybersecurity tools tailored to operational technology systems. CSA chief executive David Koh said the agency will continue partnering with global and local entities to share actionable threat intelligence. He also welcomed the formation of a new operational tech-focused special interest group by IT governance body ISACA, calling it crucial to improving information-sharing in the sector. 'A partnership approach will help to ensure a safe and resilient digital future for Singapore,' said Teo.
Malay Mail
20 hours ago
- Malay Mail
DPM Zahid: Govt to roll out multi-ministry blitz to tackle 53pc surge in child sexual crimes in Malaysia
PUTRAJAYA, July 29 — The government will adopt an integrated approach involving various ministries and agencies to address the sharp rise in cases of sexual crimes against children, which have surged by 53.2 per cent over the past four years. Deputy Prime Minister and National Social Council (MSN) chairman Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said it will involve the Home Ministry, Royal Malaysia Police, Youth and Sports Ministry, and Women, Family and Community Development Ministry to tackle the issue comprehensively, firmly and effectively. 'Statistics show that cases of sexual crimes against children rose from 2,541 in 2020 to 3,892 in 2024. 'The number of victims also increased from 2,561 to 3,988 over the same period, a jump of 55.7 per cent,' he said in a statement after chairing the MSN Meeting No. 2/2025 here today. Ahmad Zahid said technological advancements and the industrial revolution have led to increasingly sophisticated criminal modus operandi, including the use of deepfake technology and digital identity theft. Other planned measures include organising the 'Child Protection: Addressing Cyber Threats and Sexual Crimes' seminar in November. The meeting also reviewed the implementation of the National Social Policy 2030 and the development of the 2026-2030 Action Plan, which is in its final phase and will be presented to the Cabinet in October. Ahmad Zahid said the issue of homeless individuals with mental disorders who have not received treatment due to the lack of special placement facilities was also raised. 'The council supports the Health Ministry's initiative to set up a task force to establish a psychiatric nursing care home,' he said. The meeting also discussed the proposed formation of a special committee on Islamic preschool education to coordinate matters related to registration, safety, health, as well as curriculum and teaching staff strategies. In addition, the meeting examined the issue of skills mismatch among graduates, with Department of Statistics data showing that 2.06 million graduates are currently working in sectors not commensurate with their qualifications. 'To address this strategically, the MyMAHIR initiative, led by the Human Resource Ministry and TalentCorp, has been launched. 'To date, 66 industry-driven training programmes have been approved under the MyMAHIR Future Skills Talent Council, covering high-impact sectors such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence, data analytics and the green economy. 'These programmes not only provide high-skilled training but also come with job guarantees, offering an average starting salary of RM3,000 to RM6,000 per month,' he said. Ahmad Zahid said that starting this year, MSN membership has been expanded to include the Energy Transition and Water Transformation Ministry, Agriculture and Food Security Ministry, Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability Ministry, Tourism, Arts and Culture Ministry, and the Minister in the Prime Minister's Department (Federal Territories) to strengthen policy implementation impact. — Bernama
