A video clip posted on YouTube on Tuesday shows a man wearing a clown mask trying to invade a studio apartment room in Sillim-dong, southern Seoul. Captured from YouTube

By Kang Seung-woo



A startup CEO is facing criticism and potential criminal charges for uploading a video reminiscent of recent cases of men trying to invade women's homes to commit sexual assaults, to promote his parcel pick-up business.



On Tuesday, a video clip was posted on YouTube that showed a man wearing a clown mask walking down the hallway to a studio apartment room in Sillim-dong, southern Seoul, and trying to unlock the door as if he was trying to get in.



However, the door was locked and the man instead took away a parcel left at the door.



A few seconds after the masked man disappeared, the "owner" of the room came out to see what happened.



The clip resembled a real CCTV recording.



After the 89-second video was uploaded and made news headlines, the janitor of the building reported it to Gwanak Police Station.



After checking the clip and actual surveillance recordings of the building, the police found that the clown-masked man was a resident of the building identified as Choi, 34, and took him to the police station for questioning, Thursday.



Choi told the police that the theft and intrusion attempt was not real and the video was produced to use for promoting his company. The room was his own, and it was not a CCTV recording but a clip filmed with his own cellphone.



"We plan to review the law to determine what charges to file," a police officer said.



Also on Thursday, Choi uploaded an apology for causing a stir with the video, adding the video was created to promote his company and would be deleted soon.



Despite his apology, internet users harshly denounced him for disregarding and exploiting crimes against women.



"Given that he exploited fears that women have every day, such noise marketing is a criminal act," an internet user said on an internet portal.



"In other countries there actually are crimes committed by people wearing clown masks. Now there could be copycat crimes in Korea, too," another wrote.



The video controversy came as fears are growing over sexual assault among women living alone, following several cases in which men tried to slip into women's homes.

