'Doctor's Room' mastermind Cho Joo-bin paid just 260,000 won toward forfeiture; recovery rate stayed in the 0% range for five years

[Financial News] Cho Joo-bin, the mastermind behind the Telegram 'Doctor's Room' case, in which sexually exploitative material was produced and distributed, paid just 260,000 won in court-ordered forfeitures in the five years since the Supreme Court's ruling became final, it has emerged.
On the 20th, according to data submitted to Park Eun-jung of the Rebuilding Korea Party, a member of the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee, by the Ministry of Justice, Cho had paid 260,000 won—0.24% of the total amount subject to enforcement (108,289,940 won).
After 70,000 won from funds deposited in his prison account was applied toward the forfeiture in January 2022, Cho has paid just another 190,000 won to date.
Cho was indicted on charges of producing sexually exploitative material involving eight children and adolescents and 17 adults from August 2019 to February 2021 and selling and distributing it for profit, as well as organizing a criminal group by forming the 'Doctor's Room' in September 2019. In October 2021, the Supreme Court finalized his 42-year prison sentence.
The Ministry of Justice said, "We are working to secure assets liable for collection from those who have not paid by checking ownership records for land, buildings and vehicles and reviewing financial transaction information." It added, "We will track down hidden assets through further inquiries and immediately enforce the order if we find assets that can be seized."
However, the overall recovery rate for forfeitures has remained in the 0% range in recent years. Annual enforcement rates for forfeiture orders were tallied at 0.39% in 2021, 0.32% in 2022, 0.33% in 2023, 0.48% in 2024, 0.42% in 2025 and 0.27% as of August 2026.
The Ministry of Justice cited, among other things, approximately 22.9465 trillion won in outstanding forfeiture orders related to the Daewoo accounting fraud case, explaining, "A major reason enforcement rates for forfeitures are low is that punitive forfeiture cases that are effectively impossible to enforce account for a substantial share of high-value orders."
Amounts that cannot be collected because those subject to forfeiture have died or the statute of limitations has expired are also said to reach several tens of billions of won each year.
Forfeitures classified as uncollectible totaled 24.438 billion won in 2023, 36.07 billion won in 2024 and 32.007 billion won in 2025; as of August this year, the figure stood at 15.174 billion won.
[email protected] An Gaeul Reporter