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 behavior,” 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 here 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 here 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
good…………they get hillary yet?
Anyone known who could be politically embarrassed was removed before the arrests began. I guarantee it.
.
Yet will the predators in our own government get caught and actually see a day behind bars?
They are caught and the rest is entirely up to us.
338 EH?
WOW, WITH SO FEW CAUGHT, YOU WOULD THINK THIS WAVE OF “INCREASED “MORALITY” WOULD SOMEHOW INFLUENCE THE REST OF THE SUBJECTS REVEALED IN THE ARTICLES ON THE TRENCHES.
WERE CATCHING UP TO YOU JESUS!!!
SOMEDAY WE WILL BE “AS GOOD AS YEW!!!!
(hides face in shame for that remark)
338? THATS THE SCAPEGOATS FOLKS……..
THE ONES CAUGHT RUNNING ONLY ONE ,” WEBSITE”…YOU SAW NO “NETTING” OF CUSTOMERS NOW DIDJA??
THE WEIRDOS THAT PAY FOR THIS SHIT ARE JUST AS COMPLICIT AS THE CREATORS….. THE MAJORITY OF WHOM RESIDE IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE UNITED STATES.
EVEN THOUGH “18” IS THE “LEGAL” AGE FOR CONSENSUAL SEX, THIS OLD MAN KNOWS FOR A FACT, THAT AT 18, A MAN, OR A WOMAN, IS NOTHING MORE THAN A WAD OF TWISTED EMOTIONS AND HORMONES, BOTH GENDERS ARE…. VERY MUCH…… STILL….
C H I L D R E N………AND REMAIN THAT WAY USUALLY, UNTIL CONFRONTED FIRSTHAND BY THE “STING OF DEATH”, THE KIND OF STING RESULTING FROM A PROFOUND SENSE OF LOSS….
THIS “STING” MAKES MOST OF US A BIT “JADED”, BUT TO SOME, IT IS THE BEGINNING OF MENTAL ILLNESS……….
UNDERSTAND HERE THAT I AM DIRECTLY CONFRONTING SIGMUND “FRAUDS” THEORY OF PSYCHOANALYSIS, WHICH PLACES THE BEGINNING OF MENTAL ILLNESS N THE CRIB AND ON THE CHANGING TABLE.
A “THEORY” THAT WAS PRODUCED DIRECTLY FROM THE HEART OF A PEDOPHILE…..
“DO YOU HAVE DREAMS OF SEX WITH YOUR MOTHER”?? WELL DO YA????
BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Laura and I were married when we were 17 years old.
I faced the death of my brother at 22.
July was our 40th wedding anniversary.
I don’t feel jaded, don’t think I ever have, and we produced an excellent family, so I must take exception, with all due respect.
I DONT SEE YOU AS BEING MENTALLY ILL.
THE FIRST “DEEP LOSS” I EVER FELT WAS WATCHING PEOPLE HATE ONE ANOTHER. THE SECOND “DEEP LOSS” I ENCOUNTERED WAS THE REALIZATION THAT THERE WERE CERTAIN PEOPLE TRYING TO ENSLAVE ME AND MY COUNTRYMEN.THAT BECAME LONG BEFORE I SAW DEATH OF A FRIEND OR FAMILY MEMBER……
I WAS MARRIED VERY YOUNG AS WELL.SAD TO SAY, IT DIDNT WORK OUT..
WHEN I SAY “JADED, I MEAN BASICALLY “TO BECOME EFFECTED BY THE EVIL IN THIS WORLD”. IF YOU WERENT BEING EFFECTED BY IT, THERE WOULD BE NO TRENCHES.
NO DISRESPECT EITHER WAY BROTHER.
“JADED” IS NOT A “BAD” THING.
IT HAS MADE US WHO WE ARE…..
I WAS TAUGHT IN SCHOOL THAT “JADED” MEANS,
“LOSS OF INNOCENCE.”
I MEANT NO DISRESPECT TO ANYONE HERE.
THE NEW DEFINITION SEEMS TO MEAN, “TO BE FULL” OR “NOT LACKING”………………OR SURFEIT”………
I NEED TO REVISE THIS STATEMENT;
“HE MAJORITY OF WHOM RESIDE IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE UNITED STATES.”
AND ADD IN,”SOUTH AMERICA , MEXICO SPAIN , PORTUGAL, AFRIKA AND ITALY…………………
I AM NOT EXCLUDING “CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT” HERE AS OTHER BASIS FOR MENTAL ILLNESS. I KNOW THAT SOME HAVE A “PREDISPOSED WEAKNESS” TO ABUSE AND CRACK UNDER THAT KIND OF PRESSURE. (THERE ARE NO “BLANKET” THEORIES COVERING MENTAL ILLNESS) BUT IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH” DIAPER WEARING” CHILDREN IN A NORMAL SETTING.. “FRAUD” WAS A FREAK.
WE USED TO HAVE TO READ HIS WORK OUT LOUD (EMBARRASSINGLY) IN PSYCHOLOGY CLASS.
IF WE WEREN’T A “JADED” BUNCH BEFORE, WE WERE WHEN WE FINISHED, BECAUSE WE HAD SUFFERED A DEEP LOSS………………………………….
THE LOSS OF WATCHING A MAN REDUCE HIMSELF TO AN ANIMAL THROUGH “SCIENTIFIC MEANS”.
AND FINALLY.
IN MY STUDIES, I HAVE DISCOVERED THAT OVER 90 PERCENT (some say more) OF HOMOSEXUALS ARE VICTIMS OF FAGGOT CHILD ABUSE.THE SAME ABUSE THAT CAUSES, OR DEVELOPS INTO “GENDER DYSPHORIA”.
HOMOSEXUALITY BREEDS HOMOSEXUALITY…………..AND THE JEWS WANT IT “NORMALIZED”, ACCEPTED ……………..BECAUSE IT REPRESENTS THEIR “GOD”…………
THE “EIN SOF” WHICH IS BOTH MALE AND FEMALE………….THAT PICTURE OF “BAPHOMET” THAT YOU HAVE ALL SEEN(THE GOAT OF MENDES) IS AN EXCELLENT REPRESENTATION…..