SEOUL - South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday called for digital sex crimes to be thoroughly investigated after media reported that sexually explicit deepfake images and videos of South Korean women were often found in Telegram chatrooms.

The reports by domestic media over recent days have coincided with the arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram's Russian-born founder, on the weekend - part of a French probe into child pornography, drug trafficking and fraud on the encrypted messaging app.

The Korea Communications Standards Commission, the state media regulator, plans to hold a meeting on Wednesday to discuss measures to counter sexually explicit deepfakes.

"It's an exploitation of technology while relying on the protection of anonymity. It's a clear criminal act," Yoon said during a televised cabinet meeting.

Yoon talked about sex crimes on social media in general and did not mention Telegram by name.

Telegram did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Online deepfake sex crimes have surged, according to South Korean police who say 297 cases were reported in the first seven months of the year. That's up from 180 last year and nearly double the number in 2021 when data first began to be collated.

Most of the accused were teenagers and people in their 20s, the police said.

The local media reports included one analysis that went viral by the Hankyoreh newspaper which looked at Telegram channels where it said deepfakes of female university and high and middle school students were being shared.

The Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union said this week it has been informed of some cases where school students have been the victims of sexual deepfakes. It has called on the education ministry to investigate the matter.

Sexually explicit deepfakes targeting female military personnel have also been found in Telegram chatrooms, according to the Military Sexual Abuse Victim Support Center, a group that supports victims of sexual abuse in the military.

Telegram's reputation has been tarnished for some years in South Korea after it emerged that an online sexual blackmail ring was operating mostly in the app's chatrooms.

In 2020, the leader of the ring, Cho Ju-bin, was sentenced to 40 years in prison for blackmailing at least 74 women, including 16 teenagers into sending increasingly degrading and sometimes violent sexual imagery of themselves.

Making sexually explicit deepfakes with the intention to distribute them is punishable by five years in prison or a fine of 50 million won ($37,500) under South Korea's Sexual Violence Prevention and Victims Protection Act.

  - Reuters