Hundreds across the World Arrested in the Largest Child Porn Investigation Till Date

Investigating officials of three prominent countries of the world have arrested hundreds of people from across the world for participating in a child-pornography network, which uses sophisticated technology to hide the users' identities.

According to the officials in the United States, Britain and South Korea the operation was one of the largest child-pornography operations they had encountered till date.

A South Korean porn website, Welcome To Video has used the Bitcoin cryptocurrency to sell 250,000 videos depicting child sexual abuse, according to authorities. The operator of the site who is a South Korean named Jong-Woo Son and 337 users from 12 different countries, have been charged and arrested so far.

Jong-Woo Son, who is currently serving an 18-month sentence in South Korea, is also now indicted on federal charges in Washington. According to the US Justice Department, several other people charged in the case have already been convicted and are serving prison sentences of up to 15 years.

The largest child porn investigation has also led to the rescue of near about 23 underage victims in the United States, Britain and Spain who were being actively abused by users of the site, the US Justice Department informed. Many children appearing in porn videos have not yet been identified.

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

The users were also able to redeem the digital currency in return for points that they could spend downloading videos or buying all-you-can watch ‘VIP’ or premium accounts. One can also earn points by uploading fresh child pornography.

According to the US Justice Department the site has earned at least $370,000 worth of Bitcoin, before it was taken down from the web in March 2018, the currency was laundered through three different unnamed digital currency exchanges afterwards.

Darknet websites are designed in a way that it is impossible to locate online, but the Justice Department has disclosed that the Welcome To Video’s operator had accidentally revealed its server’s South Korean Internet protocol address, thereby leading the investigation subsequently linked the address to Jong-Woo Son.

Between 2016 and 2018, many countries in the world have made their child pornography laws stricter, letting police from different countries work together to crack such cases which are mostly done through international nexus. In 2007, the United States has already introduced law forbidding pornography with models under the age group of 18 years. According to a report, 140 countries across the world have already criminalized the possession of Child Sexual Abuse Material.