Six federal Internet child porn indictments were announced this week by the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Francisco, in a case triggered when online payment system PayPal tipped the FBI a year ago to a Michigan-based child porn site operator and five California customers who all used PayPal accounts in their reputed trade.
"We were suspicious of his activity, then we confirmed the nature of the illegal content," said PayPal spokeswoman Amanda Pires to Bay Area reporters after the U.S. Attorney's Office announced the indictments July 5. "Anybody who tries to use PayPal for this kind of activity is going to be arrested."
Edward A. Harvey Jr. of Canton, Michigan, was indicted in absentia in California and charged with advertising and transporting child porn and money laundering, the U.S. Attorney's Office said, making the indictment announcements two weeks after the indictments were handed down.
Harvey is in federal custody in Michigan pending extradition to San Jose and faces up to 70 years in prison if convicted.
His five alleged California customers – Robert Painter and Kevin Ing of San Jose, Gavin Dru Brown of Monterey, Greg Pennington of Sunnyvale, and Robert Citron of Walnut Creek – were charged with receiving and attempting to receive child porn, with all but Citron first charged in June and Citron first charged in May. Each of the five could face up to 30 years in prison if convicted.
Nine others were arrested in the same case involving the same reputed Harvey-run website by law enforcement in Greece, Norway, and Spain.
Pires said Harvey masked his child porn website as a legitimate business but offered no further details.
"This demonstrates that people who either sell child pornography or try to use the pretense of selling something else as a method to sell child pornography will be caught and prosecuted," said Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection executive director Joan Irvine. "We hope that it was one of the many validated child pornography reports that ASACP sends to the FBI, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and other relevant international hotlines that helped law enforcement and PayPal be aware of these alleged criminals."
A veteran of adult online payment processing and child protection advocate who asked not to be identified, said it isn't really difficult to mask child porn transactions.
"Peer-to-peer systems allow for the exchange of funds for any good, service, or access imaginable," he said. "Let's say someone orders a ‘Custom Scrapbook,’ and let's say the farce is, 'Send us your pictures of your family, pet, or vacation and we will make a personalized homemade scrapbook' or 'Send us your digital videos and we'll edit them into real home movies!' BadGuyBuyer sends BadGuySeller $500 via PayPal. BadGuySeller sends BadGuyBuyer a 'photo album, video, or CD-ROM' of child pornography.
"In reality digital delivery is probably preferred such as using a free Web host to upload images and, after the buyer pays, send the account information for the other person to log in and delete," he continued. "I have a feeling that most of these are person-to-person exchanges for depravity like child pornography rather than a commercial enterprise."
