[Anchor]

A group that carried out so-called private revenge terrorism, such as spraying filth on the front doors of other people's homes, has been sentenced to prison in the first trial. The mastermind behind the group, who even ordered a disguised employment at a subcontractor of Baedal Minjok to obtain victims' addresses, was sentenced to three years in prison.

Reporter Dong Eunyeong has the details.

[Reporter]

A man wearing a mask sprays something on an apartment front door while filming with his smartphone.

This is a scene of so-called private revenge services, where individuals are paid to spray filth and other substances on homes designated by clients.

In March, SBS exclusive reports confirmed that customer addresses leaked from a subcontractor of the food delivery platform Baedal Minjok were utilized for private revenge, exposing the reality of the revenge agency ring.

A 44-year-old woman surnamed Yeo, who disguised herself as a customer service employee at the Baedal Minjok subcontractor following the mastermind's orders and leaked around 1,000 pieces of customer personal information while receiving millions of won per month, was sentenced to two years in prison and taken into legal custody during the first trial.

[Yeo (in April) : (Why did you do this?) (...) (Do you have no apologies to the victims?) (...)]

The court sentenced a 36-year-old man surnamed Lee and another 34-year-old man surnamed Jeong, who were masterminds that ordered Yeo's disguised employment, to three years in prison each.

The defense claims that actual crimes were committed by field operatives and that they were only guilty of aiding and abetting were not accepted.

The court rebuked, saying, "Delivery addresses are information inevitably entrusted to businesses for daily life," and "The defendants made the residences, which victims should consider the safest, the targets of revenge acts."

It also emphasized, "Private revenge bypasses the rule of law and the criminal justice system to punish others on one's own, causing very serious social harm."

(Video editing: Jeong Yong-hwa, Design: Kim Han-gil)