US authorities bust global child porn ring after following Bitcoin trail

One of the world’s largest chid porn rings has been busted by US and Korean authorities after they followed a series of Bitcoin transactions.

The US issued an indictment against Jong Woo Son, who is accused of operating a darknet market that accepted Bitcoin in return for more than one million videos of child pornography.

Following the site’s closure in March 2018, there has been a global crackdown with more 300 users of the site being arrested in 11 countries including the UK, Germany, Brazil and Saudi Arabia.

Bloomberg also revealed that at least 23 victims have been rescued in the US, UK and Spain.

The use of cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin has been key to the investigation as users of the site could purchase “VIP” status for 0.05 BTC.

BREAKING: U.S. and Korean authorities say they broke up one of the world’s largest markets for child pornography, a crime that is proliferating at a furious pace with the rise of cryptocurrencies and encrypted online content https://t.co/z4riEdQC0p pic.twitter.com/51H12QENOR

— Bloomberg Crypto (@crypto) October 16, 2019

According to Don Fort, chief of the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation Division, the darknet server was located in Korea leading up to Son’s arrest.

Users were then arrested after analysis of Bitcoin transactions to and from the website.

Shocking statistics state that the amount of child porn cases has risen from 1.1 million in 2014 to 18.4 million in 2019, marking a disturbing 1,500% rise in cases.

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