“Secret Room” Can’t Be Caught or Blocked! How Many People Profit from Taiwan’s Nth Room?
Recently, it was revealed that Taiwanese celebrity Huang Zijiao was a senior member of the secret room forum “Creative Room” and possessed a large number of illegal voyeuristic images of minors. This sparked public outrage and led to the Taipei District Prosecutors Office charging him with the crime of possessing juvenile sexual images without cause, resulting in a suspended prosecution.
After the incident broke out, there were still users who continued to pay for subscriptions. The digital department, based on the “Child and Adolescent Sexual Exploitation Prevention Act” and the “Sexual Assault Prevention and Control Act,” requested internet service providers to stop resolving the domain of the “Creative Room” to prevent the public from accessing illegal websites.
However, even if the Taiwanese government successfully “closes” it, individuals with intent can bypass domain blocking through VPNs, leaving law enforcement agencies in Taiwan powerless against these overseas cybercrimes. And those who profit from voyeurism and the exploitation of minors continue to engage in illicit activities on the internet, relying on the fact that they can’t be caught or completely blocked.
How many people pay for membership in the “Creative Room” to gain access? After the “Creative Room” receives payments into its wallet, where does the money go?
In order to more accurately target the recipients of payments behind the “Creative Room,” Taiwan’s exchange XREX recently released a report that analyzes the four encrypted wallet addresses used by the “Creative Room” in the past. By tracing the flow of funds on the blockchain, they attempt to identify the beneficiaries behind the “Creative Room” and the destination of the funds.
How many people pay for membership in the “Creative Room” to gain access? After the “Creative Room” receives payments into its wallet, where does the money go?
️Further reading:
Huang Zijiao becomes a big buyer! Secret room forum “Creative Room” stablecoin receipts, can the flow of funds be traced?
Four wallets received 28.91 million New Taiwan Dollars! Which exchange wallet received the most money?
XREX used various blockchain analysis platforms, including MistTrack, Arkham, BitQuery, and OKLink, to search for transaction records and addresses on the blockchain and transform them into visual information for easy tracking of fund flows.
The report states that the four wallets of the “Creative Room” received a total of 896,000 USDT, equivalent to 28.91 million New Taiwan Dollars. Among them, the wallet with the highest receipts from the “Creative Room” is the custodial wallet “TNFw********************4” on the Binance exchange.
This wallet has been receiving funds from the “Creative Room” since December 5, 2021, until April 29, 2023, totaling 73 payments and receiving over 66,000 USDT, worth over 2 million New Taiwan Dollars. Using the OKLink wallet database tool, it can be seen that this wallet has been active for three years, and by using the Misttrack tool to observe its fund sources, all five wallets are related to the “Creative Room.”
The fourth wallet of the “Creative Room” is still being actively used, as evidenced by the most recent fund transfer from the OKX exchange on April 10, 2024, at 23:19:18, to the “TA2G85LLXqtbcMwwZUKn4gDdQ9EkoHRp8V,” which is the fourth receiving wallet of the “Creative Room.”
Who is the holder behind the wallet? Tracing the hidden figure through “reverse tracking”
Since transferring tokens on the blockchain requires paying transaction fees (Gas Fee), by tracking the source of these Gas Fees, it is possible to link the wallets and identify the actual holders’ information.
XREX, using the visualization tool Arkham, generated a relationship graph that shows the four wallets of the “Creative Room” have a common source of TRON tokens (TRX) and have close interactions in transactions, indicating a high possibility that these four wallets are held by the same person or group.
In the middle of the graph, the TRX in the wallets of the “Creative Room” have a common source and interact closely in TRX transactions, revealing a high likelihood that these four wallets are held by the same person or group.
From the graph, it can be discovered that the fourth wallet of the “Creative Room,” “TA2G85LLXqtbcMwwZUKn4gDdQ9EkoHRp8V,” has a record of receiving a deposit of 5,066 TRX from the MEXC exchange. With this transaction information, law enforcement agencies can request user identification data from the MEXC exchange and trace the true identity of the operator behind the scenes.
Furthermore, according to the visualization tool Bitquery, it can be seen that the “Creative Room” has a “layered” relationship in the transfer of TRX tokens, meaning that some wallets receive TRX and immediately transfer it out within a short period of time. This “fast in, fast out” behavior is less common in typical transactions and can be used as a characteristic to identify abnormal transactions.
XREX exchange pointed out that many TRX tokens used to pay Gas Fees were transferred from the Binance exchange to decentralized “non-custodial wallets” before being transferred into the first wallet of the “Creative Room.” Therefore, as long as law enforcement agencies obtain relevant identification data from the Binance exchange, they can determine who provided the TRX fees required for transferring funds to the “Creative Room.”
Who is making money through the “Creative Room”?
Who are the people profiting from the sale of illegal voyeuristic and exploitative videos?
After the four receiving wallets of the “Creative Room” receive payments, they are sent to other wallets. Therefore, by tracking the destination of the USDT received by the “Creative Room” wallets, the main beneficiaries can be identified.
XREX speculates in the report that these people may be website administrators, staff members, video providers, operators, or equipment purchasers. They could also be refunds to members, but their specific identities are still unclear and would require further investigation by the authorities.
Centralized exchanges, both domestic and international, require user identification verification before opening accounts. Therefore, by finding the “custodial wallets” of centralized exchanges, the group behind the “Creative Room” can be identified.
XREX exchange, through the visualization tool Bitquery, compiled a list of wallets that have upstream and downstream relationships with the four wallets of the “Creative Room” and found that three of the four receiving wallets of the “Creative Room” transferred large amounts of funds to a single wallet.
The first receiving wallet of the “Creative Room”: TJxBDgdAmD1NPy6ih4E6RBM4YQWZRACakZ
Using the blockchain analysis tool MistTrack, it is possible to trace the flow of funds from the “Creative Room” wallets and determine the potential main beneficiaries.
Through this report, Taiwan’s exchange XREX once again demonstrates its active participation and efforts in combating cybercrimes. By tracing the encrypted wallet addresses, they uncover the chain of interests behind the “Creative Room” in hopes of more effectively combating this type of criminal behavior.
However, blockchain financial investigations are only part of the solution. More efforts and innovative solutions are needed to address techniques like VPNs that bypass blocking.
In the future, it will require the joint efforts of governments, businesses, and society as a whole to effectively protect internet users, combat cybercrimes, and establish a safer online environment.
References:
XREX
Proofread by: Gao Jingyuan