The US Department of Homeland Security announced Tuesday that it has arrested 14 men who were allegedly operating a child pornography Web site on the anonymous Tor network.
The arrests were the culmination of one of the agency’s largest ever online child exploitation investigations — dubbed “Operation Round Table.” The authorities have identified 251 victims who were exploited on the site. The majority of the victims, 243, were male and their ages ranged from 3 to 17; they were identified as being from 39 US states and five foreign countries. (United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Belgium)
The underground subscription-based Web site was allegedly led by Jonathan Johnson, 27, of Abita Springs, La. According to Homeland Security, he admitted to creating fake female personas on social networks to lure in male children and convince them to record explicit videos of themselves.
“Never before in the history of this agency have we identified and located this many minor victims in the course of a single child exploitation investigation,” US Immigration and Customs Enforcement deputy director Daniel Ragsdale said in a statement. “Our agency is seeing a growing trend where children are being enticed, tricked and coerced online by adults to produce sexually explicit material of themselves.”
According to Homeland Security, the site was up from June 2012 to June 2013 and had more than 27,000 members and 2,000 videos. Law enforcement officials have opened more than 300 investigations into the website and its potential subscribers. Investigators expect more arrests as they continue to identify people associated with the website and sift through some 40 terabytes of data. Some Detailed Info About Those Already Arrested:
Daniel Nolan Devor, 39, of Brunswick, Ga., charged with conspiracy to produce child pornography, distribution of child pornography and receipt of materials involving the sexual exploitation of minors
John C. Foster, 44 of Tipp City, Ohio, charged with conspiracy to produce child pornography, distribution of child pornography, and receipt of materials involving the sexual exploitation of minors
Aung Gaw aka Michael Gaw, 25, of Fremont, Calif., charged with receipt of child pornography
Vittorio Francesco Gonzalez-Castillo, 26, of Tucson, Ariz., charged with conspiracy to produce child pornography
Sean Jabbar, 32, of Minneapolis, Minn., charged with receipt of child pornography
Christopher Jamieson, 30, of Douglassville, Ga., charged with receipt of child pornography
Andrew Korpal, 29, of Granger, Ind., charged with receipt of child pornography
Nicholas Saine, 27, of Seattle, Wash., charged with receipt of child pornography
Christopher Schwab, 25 of New Orleans, charged with production of child pornography, distribution of child pornography, and receipt of child pornography
Stanley Zdon, III, 27, of Tuckerton, N.J., charged with conspiracy to produce child pornography
Three men have been charged in other districts:
Roy Naim, 30, of Brooklyn, N.Y., was charged in the Eastern District of New York with conspiracy to produce child pornography, attempted sexual exploitation of a child, receipt of child pornography, and possession of child pornography.
Minh Vi Thong, 30, of Denver, Colo., was charged in the District of Colorado with production of child pornography, distribution of child pornography, and possession of child pornography.
Michael Eales, 24, of Westby, Wis., was charged in the Western District of Wisconsin with production of child pornography. He was sentenced Oct. 29, 2013, to serve two concurrent 30-year terms in federal prison, followed by a lifetime of supervised release, for manufacturing child pornography.