World's largest child porn website shut, hundreds of users arrested
Law enforcement officials in countries, US, South Korea, and Britain said that they have arrested hundreds of people worldwide for using child porn website
United States authorities along with law enforcement officials in countries, US, South Korea, and Britain said on October 17 that they have arrested hundreds of people worldwide for participating in the world's largest child-pornography network which used sophisticated technology to make the users anonymous. The website called, 'Welcome to Video' has also been permanently shut down after the arrest of its alleged South Korean-based operator along with 337 users in 12 different countries. According to the officials, this was also one of the largest operations they had encountered to date.
How officials tracked anonymous users
According to the court filings, the 'Welcome To Video' website was seized back in 2018 when they found out about nearly 250,000 unique video files linked to keywords like 'pedophile'. The authorities tracked the previous anonymous users of the website and then tracked their server data to prosecute the customers for making illegal content and payments. The website also used the cryptocurrency called bit-coin to make all the payments. The authorities had similarly shut down the 'Silk Road' in 2016 which was the black market exchange for narcotics, prostitution and other dark net activities. Welcome To Video filled the space which was earlier created by Silk Road.
23 minor victims rescued from the US
According to the Justice Department, the investigation has led to the rescue of nearly 23 minor victims from the United States, Britain, and Spain who were also being abused by the users of the site. However, many children from the videos have not yet been identified. The alleged South Korean operator is currently serving a sentence of 18-month and has also been convicted on federal charges in Washington. According to the US Justice Department, others who have been arrested will serve up to 15 years in prison. The World's largest child pornography, monetized the exploitation of kids as young as two-year-olds and the usage of bit-coins allowed the users to remain anonymous during financial transactions.
(With agency inputs)
Published By : Aanchal Nigam
Published On: 17 October 2019 at 13:17 IST