There’s a special place in hell for the people who make, distribute, and/or watch child pornography.

There’s now also a special place in jail for Jong Woo Son, 23, a South Korean national who, until recently, operated the largest child-exploitation site on the web.

When authorities raided his house they seized approximately 7,5 terabytes of child pornography videos, the largest of its kind.

That’s more than 10 000 CDs full of imagery that are no longer in the hands of child pornographers, reports Forbes.

According to the IRS-CI, agents became aware of Welcome to Video, the largest child sexual exploitation market by volume of content, because of their work on previous dark web marketplaces. The dark web, also referred to as “Darknet,” refers to content that you don’t typically access through regular internet browsing activities.

IRS-CI was able to trace bitcoin transactions on the site to people all over the world who were uploading and downloading this material, as well as find the location of the site administrator. By analyzing the blockchain and de-anonymizing bitcoin transactions, the agency was able to identify hundreds of predators around the world – even though those users thought that they could remain anonymous.

The investigation determined that bitcoin was used to pay for millions of downloads.

Here’s how it worked: each user received a unique bitcoin address when the user created an account on the website. Those accounts could be used to pay to download the videos. An analysis of the server revealed that the website had more than one million bitcoin addresses, signifying that the website had the capacity for at least one million users.

In addition to Son, 38 users from across the globe have been arrested and charged. Two users of the site committed suicide after the execution of search warrants.

In addition to arrests and seizures, the operation is also responsible for the rescue of at least 23 minor victims residing in the United States, Spain and the United Kingdom, who were being actively abused by the users of the site.

“Children around the world are safer because of the actions taken by U.S. and foreign law enforcement to prosecute this case and recover funds for victims,” said U.S. Attorney Jessie K. Liu.

“We will continue to pursue such criminals on and off the Darknet in the United States and abroad, to ensure they receive the punishment their terrible crimes deserve.”

I think we can all agree that there is no punishment too awful for these creeps.

At least we can rest a little easier knowing that there’s one less child-exploitation site out there.

[source:forbes]