Naver Webtoon Stolen 80,000 Copies by Illegal Sites… North Africa Hit Leaves $20 Billion Damage

Pirate networks based in North Africa that siphoned off 20 billion won a year collapse through global cooperation

A massive illegal webtoon distribution hub based in North Africa that caused an enormous scale of economic losses worth about 20 billion won per year has finally been dealt a decisive blow. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the National Police Agency, through close international cooperation with the Interpol (International Criminal Police Organization), blocked three illegal sites that had been distributing domestic K-content, including Naver Webtoon, without authorization in full and carried out the arrest of one key operator—a major win.

The platforms shut down in this operation include an illegal webtoon distribution Site A, a web novel Site B, and a Site C that linked them to form a sharing network. The group is accused of illicitly duplicating and distributing a vast library of works totaling 83,688 items, including about 39,260 of the latest webtoons such as “Severe Trauma Center”, as well as about 5,200 web novels, starting in July.

Among all the illegal distribution items identified, the share accounted for by K-content was as high as nearly 57%. The damage amount estimated by the industry alone reaches a fatal level of about 20 billion won annually. In particular, there had been intense concern about additional harm in the global market as illegally scanned and translated works were repeatedly reuploaded in the second and third rounds through third-party sites.

Behind this crackdown operation is a watertight cooperation system among the public and private sectors. In March, Naver Webtoon’s own analysis of breach-response tips served as the spark, and as a result of the tight cross-border cooperation carried out by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s copyright special judicial police, the National Police Agency’s International Police Cooperation Bureau, and Interpol’s I-SOP project, cooperation extended beyond borders.

The government plans to support the continuation of strict judicial procedures for the operators that were arrested, with ongoing cooperation with local investigative authorities. It also intends to respond forcefully and with a zero-tolerance principle to additional copyright infringement crimes that could spread to neighboring countries.

Kim Jae-hyun, the head of the Culture and Media Industries Office at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said, “As the global status of K-content rises, copyright infringement methods targeting it are also becoming increasingly sophisticated and wide-ranging by the day.” He added, “We will do our utmost to protect valuable copyrights by further tightening our cooperation network with overseas investigative agencies and international organizations and by maintaining close communication with the domestic industry.”