Bitcoin fights pedophilia: Authorities dismantled a major gang that distributed pedophile content on the dark web thanks to Bitcoin's features that allowed them to find the site's administrator and several others involved.
In a release A recent report released by the Spanish Civil Guard reveals a series of intelligence and investigation operations aimed at the arrest and detention of several criminals who were operating with child pornography on the dark web. The investigative operations were carried out jointly with the United States Homeland Security Investigations Service (HSI), which now has control over several of these platforms.
The actions carried out by the authorities to dismantle child exploitation gangs are focused on discovering the new techniques that these criminals use to distribute illegal content through the dark web. Many of these websites use browsers such as Tor that help them to have a higher level of anonymity to avoid tracking. Even though several of the criminals received payments through Bitcoin, investigations carried out by the authorities revealed the identity of several of them; this was thanks to the transparency characteristics of Bitcoin that allowed the authorities to investigate in depth the addresses involved until they found the owners.
This fact undoubtedly breaks the erroneous belief that criminals can use Bitcoin for their illegal activities without being discovered. Let us remember that this network is not anonymous, and it is also open source, so it provides absolute transparency for any person or organization to audit all operations recorded on the network. blockchain of Bitcoin from its beginnings to the present.
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Details of the operations carried out by the Civil Guard and the HSI
Firstly, the Civil Guard reveals that during the operation called Call, a man was arrested for sexually abusing his 16-year-old stepdaughter. The statement also states that the man recorded his acts and sold the pornographic material on the dark web, and that he carried out this disgusting act for 7 years.
Likewise, the statement indicates that the authorities carried out two other investigative operations, called Kugantxu y Jekyll, during which several individuals were arrested who were making payments in cryptocurrencies to have real-time access to pornographic and child abuse content.
These investigative operations were carried out in Spain. The first, Kiru, took place in Madrid, the place of residence of the person arrested for abusing a minor, while Kugantxu took place in Bilbao. These two operations were carried out after receiving complaints from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children of the United States (NCMEC), who raised the alert about the existence of illegal content involving minors.
During Kugantxu, another man was arrested in Bilbao who made payments in cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin and other tokens to receive live pedophile content, so by tracking the messaging and the payments made, the authorities were able to find the recipients of the transactions, located mainly in the Philippines and Asia.
Jekyll focused on investigating pedophile activities on the dark web and cryptocurrency payments
Operation Jekyll, for its part, focused on investigating activities taking place on the dark web through browsers such as Tor. During this operation, the Civil Guard and the HSI found several users who were using Bitcoin to make payments for illegal content.
The authorities focused mainly on the website Welcome 2 Video, so the investigations carried out allowed us to identify several of the addresses associated with this platform. Likewise, Welcome 2 Video, very similar to the platform Welcome to Video, closed In a similar operation in October 2019, it allowed users to access content based on the amount of money they deposited, and even paid a reward to users who uploaded videos or photographs that were not previously available on the site.
As a result of this operation, several actors involved in this illegal activity were arrested, including the website administrator. The Civil Guard notes that the arrest of one of those involved was in the municipality of Malaga, while another 4 searches were carried out throughout Spain. The Welcome 2 Video portal is currently under the control of HSI.
Bitcoin against pedophilia and criminals
Dark web users believe that this internet alternative gives them complete privacy or anonymity, and the same goes for Bitcoin users, who confuse the security provided by the system with a level of total privacy where they can hide their criminal acts.
Thanks to the characteristics and qualities that Bitcoin has as a decentralized system, the authorities were able to identify those involved in these illegal content platforms, both Welcome to Video in 2019, and now with Welcome 2 Video. In fact, it was thanks to the tracking and monitoring of transactions made by consumers of this content that the authorities unmasked the owners.
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