A U.S. probe into a Belarus-based Internet billing company has led to over 900 people arrested in 10 countries, Swiss law enforcement has confirmed.
This confirmation came a week after 10 were arrested and over 400 homes were searched in a Swiss operation that began in early September, an operation that was also said to involve over 100,000 photo and video files examined as a result of the home searches.
“One of the best method to finding the people who are selling child pornography is to follow the money,” said Adult Sites Against Child Pornography executive director Joan Irvine. “This is the reason why during its investigation, ASACP identifies the payment process, hosting companies and other such relevant information. As reported in January, ASACP has sent reports to the FBI on Trustbill.com since 2000 and Regpay since February 2003. This year ASACP has identified two other billing companies – one in Florida and one in Russia – being used by child pornographers and reported these to the FBI, NCMEC, and hotlines in Europe.”
The 900 arrests were made in Britain, Denmark, Finland, France, Hong Kong, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States, according to Swiss federal police spokesman Guido Balmer. The U.S. arrests in this investigation were said to total 140, according to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement service, which also said that eight of the ten Swiss suspects arrested last week also faced child molestation charges.
The Internet billing company which triggered the case was believed to be charged in January with money laundering and providing credit payment processing for at least 50 child porn sites as well as running a suspected 50 child porn sites on their own, according to the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement service.
Three company officers were arrested in Europe and two officers “of an affiliated company in Florida” pleaded guilty in the case, the ICE said, adding that from there the probe moved to those around the world who bought child porn from the sites in question.
The ICE said Swiss federal police and all 26 regional police agencies in the country worked from leads given them by the ICE attaché in Bern, part of a massive Operation Predator investigation. Since it began in July 2003, Operation Predator has nabbed over four thousand in the United States alone.
