Hundreds of hotel guests secretly filmed with spycams in South Korean hotels

The only clue to the creepy activity was a tiny dot in wall sockets and hair dryer holders. Now police are investigating.

Spy cameras secretly filmed hundreds of guests in hotel rooms in South Korea, with people paying for subscription services to watch the live-streamed footage.

South Korean police said two men have been arrested and two others are being investigated over the spy scandal in 30 accommodation venues across the country.

About 1600 people were secretly filmed with small cameras, with one-millimetre lenses, hidden inside digital TV boxes, wall sockets and hair dryer holders between November 24 last year and March 2 this year, police said.

The tiny cameras were installed in various places in the rooms, including in the holder of hair dryers. Picture: South Korea National Police Agency

It’s believed 42 hotel rooms in 10 cities across South Korea were affected. None of the hotel names have been released and police said there was no indication the hotels were complicit in the spying of guests.

The footage obtained from the hotel rooms was streamed online on a site with more than 4000 members, 97 of whom paid about $63 a month to see extra features.

Police said the site made more than $8700 since November 2018.

“There was a similar case in the past where illegal cameras were (secretly installed) and were consistently and secretly watched, but this is the first time the police caught where videos were broadcast live on the internet,” South Korea’s National Police Agency told CNN.

This picture taken on June 9, 2018 shows South Korean women staging a monthly protest against secretly filmed spycam pornography in Seoul. Picture AFP/Jung Hawon

If convicted of distributing the illegal videos, the accused could be jailed and fined about $A38,000.

South Korea has seen a growing problem of spycams being used to film women in public toilets. The BBC reported more than 6000 cases were reported in 2017, which was nearly triple the number in 2012.

However, only two per cent of perpetrators were jailed.

Women in Seoul held mass protests in June last year as part of a campaign called “My Life is Not Your Porn” that demanded tougher sentences for perpetrators.