According to local news reports, law enforcement authorities seized assets worth 2.6 billion won (US$1.9m) including two luxury cars, and a total of 14 bitcoin.

Six months later, ‘Person A’ appeared before a court in South Korea to discover how his immediate future would be playing out.

Sentenced to 3 Years in Prison, $500K Fine

On May 26, Judge Koh Young-sik at the 9th Criminal Division of the Daejeon District Court, sentenced ‘Person A’ for offenses under the Copyright Act.

“The nature of the crime is bad because it systematically infringed on property rights over a long period of time for profit-making purposes such as obtaining advertising revenue,” Judge Koh said.

To avoid the effects of site blocking and other government action, Person A continued to operate using dozens of domains and overseas servers, including in the Dominican Republic and Paraguay. Virtual private networks (VPNs), overseas credit cards, and cryptocurrencies were also used in an effort to avoid being tracked down by investigators.

To obtain content from legal webtoon platforms, Person A reportedly obtained official accounts from an unspecified number of people before posting illegal copies online. A diagram supplied by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism provides an overview of the operation.

Image credit: Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (text TF)

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“Copyright crimes not only infringe on the copyright holder’s ability to generate revenue, but also discourage creative desire, ultimately hindering cultural development,” Judge Koh continued.

“In addition, the defendant admitted his wrongdoing, and his criminal record was taken into consideration when determining the sentence.”

For the illegal distribution of hundreds of thousands of copyrighted videos and webtoons via NunuTV, TVWiki, and OKTOON, the former pirate site operator was ordered to serve three years in prison and pay a fine of 700 million won (US$512K)

Odds of Evasion: Slim

Reports claim that NunuTV’s operator was “meticulous” in his efforts to remain anonymous but when local government and law enforcement agencies team up with international partners, that may not be enough. Person A was the target of a joint investigation by the Copyright Crime Scientific Investigation Unit of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, and the International Criminal Police Organization, better known as INTERPOL.

In January 2025, INTERPOL announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding and launch of the second phase of INTERPOL-Stop Online Piracy (I-SOP), an international collaborative anti-piracy project to crack down on illegal online distribution platforms.

The initiative receives funding from the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) (2.8 million euros) with support from the Korean National Police Agency.

In addition to the dismantling of NunuTV, successes during the first phase include the arrest of individuals behind P2P release group EVO.