SEOUL - Mr Shin Jang-jin's shop in Incheon offers seemingly innocuous household items, from pens and lighters to watches and smoke detectors, but with a secret feature - a hidden one millimetre-wide-lens that can shoot video.
"They thought I would understand them as a fellow man. I turned them away." But the 52-year-old admits he is not always able to spot unscrupulous buyers. Under current regulations, spycam buyers are not required to give personal information, making it difficult to trace their ownership and use of the devices.
In one case, offenders had livestreamed footage of around 800 couples having sex - filmed in hotel rooms using cameras installed inside hairdryer holders, wall sockets and digital TV boxes. The number of spycam crimes reported to police surged from around 2,400 in 2012 to nearly 6,500 in 2017. "More than 90 per cent of spycam porn crimes are due to mobile phones, not specialised items," he said, adding that any crackdown on the gadgets was akin to blaming knife makers for knife-related murders.