By On 16th October, Jong Woo Son, a 23 year old South Korean national, was indicted for his operation of the largest child pornography site.
The indictment comes with a parallel civil forfeiture action. Though indicted by a federal jury in the District of Columbia, Son was also charged and convicted in South Korea, where he is currently in custody. Additionally, the 337 site users from various parts of the world were also arrested and charged.
Vigilance in The Department of Justice
The assistant attorney general, Brian A Benczkowski, stated that the darknet sites profiting from the exploitation of children are vile criminals. He added that they would not be allowed to shield themselves with the lawlessness of online spaces.
The announcement of the indictment of Jong Woo Son is a sign that the Department of Justice is still vigilant. The department is working with its counterparts throughout the world to bring the perpetrators of these vile crimes to justice. The attorney general, Jesse K Liu, also stated that they would continue with the pursuit of such criminals on the darknet both in the U.S. and abroad.
The website is said to have been funded using bitcoin, which made it harder to trace. However, the IRS-CI agents located the website’s servers in South Korea using sophisticated tracing of bitcoin transactions. Advancements in technology, along with the use of cryptocurrency, has enabled criminals to hide behind the dark web and enhance their criminal activities. However, no matter the sophisticated technology they use, the department of justice is on to them and will not tolerate such hideous crimes among children.
The Largest Child Pornography Site Taken Down
The website servers seized had approximately 8terabytes of child pornography. The authorities found over one million downloads of child exploitation videos by site users. The server contained over 250,000 unique videos, half of which have not been previously known to exist. The images are still being analyzed, but they are said to be graphic, disturbing, abusive, and violent.
The website offered the videos for sale using cryptocurrency, bitcoin. It is among the first of its kind to monetize such videos using bitcoin. Each user of the website received a personal bitcoin address upon the creation of the account. The website is said to have had more than one million bitcoin addresses, which means that the website had a capacity for more than one million users. The site users gained access to the site by uploading child pornography, being referred by other users, or paying for access using bitcoin and other forms of cryptocurrency.
The operation led to the arrest of 337 suspects and the rescue of at least 23 minor victims. The victims are said to reside in the US, Spain, and the U.K. Two users of the site are reported to have committed suicide upon the execution of search warrants.
Following the funds in the blockchain, the cryptocurrency accounts showed that 24 individuals in 5 countries funded the website. The funds will be recovered and returned to the victims.
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