Largest Child Pornography Website Sampled and Closed Down by DOJ
In a significant victory for law enforcement agencies worldwide, the largest child pornography site by the amount of material stored, Welcome To Video (WTV), based in South Korea, has been taken down. The operation, which involved agencies from the United States, Europe, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Italy, and Spain, was announced by the Department of Justice.
Between 2015 and 2018, WTV received nearly $353,000 worth of us currency across thousands of individual transactions. IRS-Criminal Investigations (IRS-CI) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) used the website's software to analyze blockchain transactions and map out contributors and users of the site.
IRS-CI Chief Don Fort emphasised the importance of bitcoin price transaction tracing in the investigation. The agency was able to combine account information with open source intelligence and standard investigative techniques to identify users. WTV received funds from several different exchanges, which provided information on the accounts sending money to WTV.
The work done by law enforcement and our products helped free at least 23 minors from their abusers. Over 8 terabytes of child pornography were seized during the shutdown. By March 2018, agents arrested the WTV owner and shut down the site.
Upon signing up for the site, users received a unique bitcoin address where they could send funds to buy content to view. Welcome To Video allowed users to buy content with bitcoin or upload their own. The site had 1.3 million bitcoin addresses registered.
The takedown of WTV advanced the mission of building trust in blockchains. Fighting against sites like WTV is a step in enabling an entire economy powered by cryptocurrency. IRS-CI and HSI's use of the website's Reactor to analyze transaction activity and build a graph showing the flow of funds in and out of the WTV address was instrumental in the investigation.
U.S. Attorney Jessie K. Liu stated that children around the world are safer because of this investigation. More than 337 site users across 38 countries have been arrested so far. Law enforcement agencies across the world collaborated to take down Welcome to Video, requiring cross-border collaboration.
International police agencies including the FBI (USA), Europol (Europe), South Korean National Police Agency, and law enforcement from the mentioned countries participated in the operation against the child pornography website. The shutdown of WTV marks a significant milestone in the fight against online child exploitation and the protection of children worldwide.
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