Dark web child abuse bust leads to 338 arrests worldwide

[webfact]

Dark web child abuse bust leads to 338 arrests worldwide

By Andy Sullivan and Raphael Satter

 

The seized Welcome to Video website in an image courtesy of the U.S. Department of Justice. REUTERS/via DOJ

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Law enforcement officials said on Wednesday they had arrested hundreds of people worldwide after knocking out a South Korea-based dark web child pornography site that sold gruesome videos for digital cash.

 

Officials from the United States, Britain and South Korea described the network as one of the largest child pornography operations they had encountered to date.

 

Called Welcome To Video, the website relied on the bitcoin cryptocurrency to sell access to 250,000 videos depicting child sexual abuse, authorities said, including footage of extremely young children being raped. Its upload page specifically stated, "Do not upload adult porn."

 

"Darknet sites that profit from the sexual exploitation of children are among the most vile and reprehensible forms of criminal behaviour," U.S. Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski said.

 

Officials have rescued at least 23 underage victims in the United States, Britain and Spain who were being actively abused by users of the site, the Justice Department said. Many children in the videos have not yet been identified.

 

The site's vast library - nearly half of it consisting of images never seen before by law enforcement - is an illustration of what authorities say is an explosion of sexual abuse content online. In a statement, Britain's National Crime Agency said officials were seeing "increases in severity, scale and complexity."

 

Welcome To Video's operator, a South Korean named Jong Woo Son, and 337 users in 12 different countries, have been charged so far, authorities said.

Son, currently serving an 18-month sentence in South Korea, was also indicted on federal charges in Washington.

 

Several other people charged in the case have already been convicted and are serving prison sentences of up to 15 years, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

 

Welcome To Video is one of the first websites to monetize child pornography using bitcoin, which allows users to hide their identities during financial transactions.

 

Users were able to redeem the digital currency in return for "points" that they could spend downloading videos or buying all-you-can watch "VIP" accounts. Points could also be earned by uploading fresh child pornography.

 

'BOTTOM FEEDERS OF CRIMINAL WORLD'

"These are the bottom feeders of the criminal world," said Don Fort, chief of criminal investigation at the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, which initiated the investigation.

 

The Justice Department said the site collected at least $370,000 worth of bitcoin before it was taken down in March 2018 and that the currency was laundered through three unnamed digital currency exchanges.

 

Darknet websites are designed to be all-but-impossible to locate online. How authorities managed to locate and bring down the site isn't clear, with differing narratives by different law enforcement organizations on the matter.

 

Fort said the investigation was triggered by a tip to the IRS from a confidential source. However, Britain's National Crime Agency said they came across the site during an investigation into a British academic who in October 2017 pleaded guilty https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-abuse-academic/uk-academic-who-blackmailed-victims-into-sending-horrific-abuse-photos-admits-137-offences-idUKKBN1CL2BA to blackmailing more than 50 people, including teenagers, into sending him depraved images that he shared online.

 

In a statement, British authorities said the National Crime Agency's cybercrime unit deployed "specialist capabilities" to identify the server's location. The NCA did not immediately return an email seeking clarification on the term, which is sometimes used as a euphemism for hacking.

 

The U.S. Justice Department gave a different explanation, saying that Welcome To Video's site was leaking its server's South Korean internet protocol address to the open internet.

 

Experts pointed to the bust as evidence that the trade in child abuse imagery could be tackled without subverting the encryption that keeps the rest of the internet safe.

 

Officials in the United States and elsewhere have recently begun prodding major technology firms https://www.reuters.com/article/facebook-security/fbi-director-warns-facebook-could-become-platform-of-child-pornographers-idUSL2N26P0J7 to come up with solutions that could allow law enforcement to bypass the encryption that protects messaging apps like WhatsApp or iMessage, citing the fight against child pornography as a major reason.

 

Welcome To Video's demise "is a clear indication that in cases like this, where there's very low-hanging fruit, breaking encryption is not required," said Christopher Parsons, a senior research associate at Citizen Lab, based at the University of Toronto's Munk School.

 

He said the bust showed that law enforcement could also track criminal activity that employs cryptocurrency transactions.

 

"There's a lot of a people who have this perception that bitcoin is totally anonymous," Parsons said, "and it's been the downfall of many people in many investigations."

 

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Steve Orlofsky and Bernadette Baum)

 

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-10-17

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[observer90210]

No Thailand on the photo ?...what happened ?!

[Matzzon]

2 hours ago, observer90210 said:

No Thailand on the photo ?...what happened ?!

That was just so somebody could find a reason to bring them into the discussion anyway. ???? Like a little bit of bickering on Thailand, when they are not even involved.

Anyway, child pornography is something that should be taken down everywhere, and a very sick view in evil peoples mind. Good work from the people involed and a fantastic co-op between many countries. ????

[jingjai9]

I think they should use the money collected from the criminal enterprises to research why so many are attracted to the porn sites. Simply saying "sick" and "evil" only serves to vent anger, disgust, and helplessness when reacting to a societal ill. We need research, comparative studies, etc. If these consumers of the porn sit in jail, why not talk to them, learn what makes them tick> Is this an illness like other addictions or what? Once we have a consensus on the "nature of the beast" perhaps we can address it rationally and effectively. It seems we never go beyond the anger and disgust. There will be more raids like the one featured in this Rueter's article. 

[OneMoreFarang]

I have an idea about a new website: Maybe call it The Torture of Pedophiles. Life streaming of action in the prison with all those 338 arrested people. Maybe add some sadists and war criminals to the mix to make it more exiting.

[bert bloggs]

Personally i cant for the life of me understand why anyone could be interested in having sex with a toddler ,but obviously a very very large amount of people do ,as was posted earlier ,its no good just calling them sick or evil ,not to long ago being gay was sick and evil ,now it is seen as normal by many , and lets not forget that in the last century child brothels were common ,as they are in some country's still as is child sex .

so what is to be done ?

[bert bloggs]

1 hour ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I have an idea about a new website: Maybe call it The Torture of Pedophiles. Life streaming of action in the prison with all those 338 arrested people. Maybe add some sadists and war criminals to the mix to make it more exiting.

Being devils advocate here,would you have done the same to gay people back in the 50s when it was a crime for which you could go to prison ? by the way i am not having a go ,just discusing .

[Tropposurfer]

1 hour ago, jingjai9 said:

I think they should use the money collected from the criminal enterprises to research why so many are attracted to the porn sites. Simply saying "sick" and "evil" only serves to vent anger, disgust, and helplessness when reacting to a societal ill. We need research, comparative studies, etc. If these consumers of the porn sit in jail, why not talk to them, learn what makes them tick> Is this an illness like other addictions or what? Once we have a consensus on the "nature of the beast" perhaps we can address it rationally and effectively. It seems we never go beyond the anger and disgust. There will be more raids like the one featured in this Rueter's article. 

I'd be happy to talk with you and explore the underpinnings, reasons behind such heinous and harmful behaviours. Bean dealing with sex abuse, trauma, perpetrators and victims for a long time. Let me know in a private message and I'll give you my Skype.

[Chomper Higgot]

1 hour ago, jingjai9 said:

I think they should use the money collected from the criminal enterprises to research why so many are attracted to the porn sites. Simply saying "sick" and "evil" only serves to vent anger, disgust, and helplessness when reacting to a societal ill. We need research, comparative studies, etc. If these consumers of the porn sit in jail, why not talk to them, learn what makes them tick> Is this an illness like other addictions or what? Once we have a consensus on the "nature of the beast" perhaps we can address it rationally and effectively. It seems we never go beyond the anger and disgust. There will be more raids like the one featured in this Rueter's article. 

The demonization is part of the reason why psychologists and research foundations are reluctant  go near the issue.

 

But you are right, heinous as these crimes are, they’ve always been around, they always will be around, time to understand why, what the causes are.

 

I can think of no other subject in which simply wanting to understand the causes is unacceptable to so many.

[toofarnorth]

Not too sure ' bottom feeders ' was the best analogy to use here.

[OneMoreFarang]

2 hours ago, bert bloggs said:

3 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I have an idea about a new website: Maybe call it The Torture of Pedophiles. Life streaming of action in the prison with all those 338 arrested people. Maybe add some sadists and war criminals to the mix to make it more exiting.

Being devils advocate here,would you have done the same to gay people back in the 50s when it was a crime for which you could go to prison ? by the way i am not having a go ,just discusing .

No.

Let's assume you had adult gays in mind. When adults "play" with adults I don't really care what they do. If they are gay or like bondage or p#$$ at each other, if they are adult and agree to it they can do whatever they want to each other.

 

I don't even have a problem with people who are attacked by kids as long as they don't act according to that desire. Because as far as I know nobody decides that they want to get aroused by kids. As far as I know that's just the way they are and they can't just switch it off.

But they can all decide if they act according to their desire. Do they touch kids sexually? Very bad? Do they look at abused children? Also bad because as long as some people want to look at those pictures and videos someone will produce them and doing that misusing children.

 

Pedophiles are people who get aroused by prepuberty kids, which is 13 or younger. These kids can't possibly consciously agree to such actions. And that means all adults who misuse them are guilty. Very guilty. That's why I made above comment.

[Baerboxer]

5 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I have an idea about a new website: Maybe call it The Torture of Pedophiles. Life streaming of action in the prison with all those 338 arrested people. Maybe add some sadists and war criminals to the mix to make it more exiting.

 

The BBC reported earlier in the week, that a former English teacher and christian missionary in Malaysia, who was convicted of abusing over 200 children, some still infants, and sentenced to 25 years in the UK, following work by Australian police, was found stabbed to death in his cell in Yorkshire. 

He was convicted in UK due to the law allowing British citizens to be charged with criminal offenses committed overseas. He had also been bragging on the dark web with videos.

 

Good work from the Aussie Police, British Police, Crown Prosecution Service and Convict X who decided the scumbag shouldn't be wasting oxygen!

[evadgib]

1 hour ago, Baerboxer said:

and Convict X who decided the scumbag shouldn't be wasting oxygen!

Convict X was a fellow inmate on the nonces wing according to a report seen last night.

[mickey rat]

11 hours ago, jingjai9 said:

I think they should use the money collected from the criminal enterprises to research why so many are attracted to the porn sites. Simply saying "sick" and "evil" only serves to vent anger, disgust, and helplessness when reacting to a societal ill. We need research, comparative studies, etc. If these consumers of the porn sit in jail, why not talk to them, learn what makes them tick> Is this an illness like other addictions or what? Once we have a consensus on the "nature of the beast" perhaps we can address it rationally and effectively. It seems we never go beyond the anger and disgust. There will be more raids like the one featured in this Rueter's article. 

The research is fairly extensive, Google "paedophilia". Yes, there is much discust and anger as there are children involved. In fact they often need to be held in isolation during incarceration for their own safety.