Largest facilitator of child pornography sites' extradited from Ireland

Ian Collier News reporter

A man once described by the FBI as the world's largest facilitator of child pornography websites is facing up to 30 years in jail following his extradition from Ireland.

Eric Eoin Marques has admitted operating a web hosting service that allowed users to anonymously access hundreds of thousands of images and videos depicting the rape and torture of infants and older children.

The 34-year-old, who is set to be sentenced on 11 May, has spent years fighting his extradition to the US since being arrested in Dublin in 2013.

FBI Special Agent Brooke Donahue described Marques as "the largest facilitator of child pornography websites on the planet", according to court records.

She also testified that Marques had been searching online for information about obtaining a Russian visa and citizenship.

"He was trying to look for a place to reside to make it most difficult to be extradited to the US," the FBI agent said.

The dual Irish and US citizen operated a web hosting service on the dark net that allowed thousands of users to view and share child pornography without revealing their IP addresses.

An IP address is a label used to identify one or more devices on the internet and is comparable to a postal address.

In 2013, FBI agents in Maryland connected to the network and accessed a child pornography bulletin board with more than 7,700 members and 22,000 posts.

Agents downloaded more than one million files from another website on the network, nearly all of which depicted sexually explicit images of children.

Authorities seized nearly $155,000 (£120,000) from Marques, who said during an August 2013 extradition hearing that his business had been "very successful" and profitable.

He was living in Ireland at the time of the alleged offences.

Marques was indicted in April 2019 in Maryland on conspiring to advertise child pornography, conspiring to distribute child pornography, advertising child pornography and distribution of child pornography.

Trinity Mount Ministries - CyberTipline - NCMEC - Report Abuse! 1-800-843-5678

Overview

NCMEC’s CyberTipline is the nation’s centralized reporting system for the online exploitation of children. The public and electronic service providers can make reports of suspected online enticement of children for sexual acts, extra-familial child sexual molestation, child pornography, child sex tourism, child sex trafficking, unsolicited obscene materials sent to a child, misleading domain names, and misleading words or digital images on the internet.

What Happens to Information in a CyberTip?

NCMEC staff review each tip and work to find a potential location for the incident reported so that it may be made available to the appropriate law-enforcement agency for possible investigation. We also use the information from our CyberTipline reports to help shape our prevention and safety messages.

Is Your Image Out There?

Get Support

One of the worst things about sextortion is feeling like you’re facing everything alone. But you have people who care for you and want to help. Reach out to them!

A trusted adult can offer advice, help you report, and help you deal with other issues. It could be your mom, dad, an aunt, a school counselor, or anyone you trust and are comfortable talking to. You can also “self report” by making a report on your own to the CyberTipline.

Don’t Give Up

Having a sexual exploitative image of yourself exposed online is a scary experience. It can make you feel vulnerable and isolated, but remember, others have been in the same situation as you – and they’ve overcome it. 

Learn the steps you can take to limit the spread of the content.

TikTok Is A Pedophile Magnet And Unsafe For Kids, Warns Cyber Security Expert:

"TikTok also received the biggest fine in US history for gathering data on kids and selling it," revealed Susan McLean, former Victorian police cyber safety specialist.

By Shilpa Das Gupta

If your child is using Tiktok, one of the most popular video-sharing apps, they might not be safe as many have regarded it as a pedophile magnet. The Chinese application, which allows users to create and share short videos, came to limelight in early 2018 after achieving approximately 45.8 million users. Due to its video-only interface, unlike Facebook and Twitter, it gained popularity amongst children, especially those under the age of 16. The app, which has surpassed the popularity of Snapchat, requires a person to only be 13 years of age or above to sign up for an account. This exposes young and impressible kids to predators who can view their pictures and contact them unless the account is private.

Addressing the growing fears surrounding its privacy, Susan McLean, former Victorian police cyber safety specialist, said, "TikTok is not a safe app and there are many concerns, not the least bullying and grooming by predators." Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, she further warned, "Any app that allows communication can be used by predators." A recent investigation conducted by BBC News found that TikTok failed to remove the accounts of people sending sexual messages to teenagers and children.

Through this three month probe, the outlet was able to gather hundreds of sexual comments posted on videos uploaded by teens and kids. Although the company was successful in deleting most of these unsavory comments, they failed to suspend the accounts of users who posted them in the first place, thus going directly against TikTok's own rules of sexual content directed at children. "TikTok does not have the same safety sessions as some of the more well-known apps and routinely do not remove accounts that have been flagged as potentially a predator," explained McLean.

"Paedophiles like to watch kids sing and dance so they can take the videos and share them," she continued. "The data gathering is a huge concern and if the government is worried then it is not a place for kids." While TikTok's website explains how parents have the option to set their kid's profile to private, it also admits that "even with a private account, profile information – including profile photo, username, and bio – will be visible to all users." It also urged parents to 'counsel' their children not to disclose sensitive information like age, address, or phone number on the website.

The application is also feared to increase the scope of bullying through its platform and Kids Helpline revealed that they had received reports from its concerned counselors about the same. In one such occurrence, a child came across a video posted by a girl at school, where she was heard saying that she should "die in a hole." Additionally, there are many concerns about the privacy and data that are used by the company. "Both the US and Australian governments have told serving soldiers that they are not to use it because of security fears," revealed Ms. McLean. "TikTok also received the biggest fine in US history for gathering data on kids and selling it."

TikTok's in-app parental control feature is the combination of Screen Time Management and Restricted Mode, which is called Digital Wellbeing. This feature enables parents to set up a password when they turn on the digital well-being feature on their kid's phone and allows them to set a limit to the time their kid spends on the app per day watching only filtered content.
#TikTokSafetyAcademy

Defending its privacy policy, a spokesperson for TikTok said, "TikTok is an app for users age 13 and over, and we’ve given the app a 12 App Store rating so parents can simply block it from their child’s phone using device-based controls. In our Safety Centre we offer a library of educational resources for teens and their families, including safety educational videos and a safety blog series. As one of many apps with teenage users, we encourage parents to monitor their teenager’s account, review and adjust their privacy settings, help them report any inappropriate behavior, and have an open dialogue with their teenagers about how to be responsible and safe in all online activity."

Trinity Mount Ministries - CyberTipline - NCMEC - DOJ - Report Child Abuse! 1-800-843-5678

In March 1998, using hardware, software, and programming assistance donated by Sun MicroSystems, NCMEC launched the CyberTipline® to further NCMEC’s mission of helping to prevent and diminish the sexual exploitation of children.

The CyberTipline provides the public and electronic service providers (ESPs) with the ability to report online (and via toll-free telephone) instances of online enticement of children for sexual acts, extra-familial child sexual molestation, child pornography, child sex tourism, child sex trafficking, unsolicited obscene materials sent to a child, misleading domain names, and misleading words or digital images on the Internet. NCMEC continuously reviews.

CyberTipline reports to ensure that reports of children who may be in imminent danger get first priority. After NCMEC’s review is completed, all information in a CyberTipline report is made available to law enforcement.

In furtherance of NCMEC’s mission, the CyberTipline allows NCMEC to engage with the Internet industry on voluntary initiatives to help reduce the proliferation of child sexual abuse images online. NCMEC uses the information submitted to the CyberTipline to create and tailor NCMEC’s safety and prevention publications that are provided to educators, parents and the public to help to prevent future victimization.

Members of the public are encouraged to report information regarding possible child sexual exploitation to the CyberTipline.

Kids Can Bypass Communication Limit Feature On iOS 13.3

If you have children that own Apple devices, be aware that the latest update for iOS 13.3 included a feature called Communications Limits.

It is designed to allow parents to set up parental controls to keep their kids from speaking to, texting with, or Facetiming with anyone who's not already in their contacts list.

It's a small but important feature addition. Hackers, scammers, bullies, or strangers can easily get phone numbers belonging to children. Even worse, they can then harass or threaten them in a variety of ways.

Unfortunately, there were problems with the implementation of the feature. For one thing, a bug in the code allowed kids to add a new number to the address book contacts list and use that as a springboard for bypassing the restrictions imposed by the software.

The bug was discovered by staffers at CNBC who were able to show that the feature worked fine on devices backed by iCloud, but not other services like Google's Gmail.

• Todd Haselton of CNBC had this to say about the discovery:

"A child should not be able to add the contact to the iPhone's address book without their parent entering their PIN first if the feature is working properly."

That's a succinct description of both the problem and its solution. Right now, Apple is scrambling to generate a fix. Although the company hasn't said as much, there's a very good chance that by the next patching cycle, the company will have a fix in hand.

If you were counting on the feature, one thing you can do until the fix is ready is to make use of the Downtime feature. That allows users to restrict access to apps according to a predefined schedule. It's not perfect, but it will get the job done in the short term.

Federal Jury Finds Virginia Man Guilty of Sex Offense Involving a Minor

BLUEFIELD, W.Va. – A federal jury convicted a Virginia man yesterday after a two-day trial, announced United States Attorney Mike Stuart. The jury found Jeffrey William Sexton, Jr., 27, of Virginia Beach, guilty of traveling across state lines to engage in illicit sexual activity with a minor on June 1, 2019.

“As a dad, I cannot adequately describe how much matters like this trouble me.  Cases like this are disturbing and difficult to work.  Sexton thought he was traveling to engage in sex with a 13 year old and, to the nightmare of every parent, even encouraged her to sneak out of her house,” said United States Attorney Mike Stuart.  “We are blessed that Sexton was communicating with an undercover officer and not a real 13-year-old.  We are doing everything within our power to keep West Virginia’s children safe from predators like Sexton.  I want to thank the FBI Task Force and my prosecution team for bringing this case to a successful conclusion.”

Sexton had previously been charged in a single-count indictment with travel to engage in illicit sexual activity with a minor. At trial, evidence revealed that Sexton began communicating with an undercover law enforcement officer posing as a 13-year-old girl on a social messaging and dating application on approximately May 28, 2019. During the conversations, Sexton brought up the topic of oral sex with the purported minor. At approximately 1 a.m. on June 1, 2019, Sexton traveled from Bluefield, Virginia, to Bluefield, West Virginia, to meet the alleged 13-year-old after telling her to sneak out of her house. On May 31, 2019, Sexton had also reached out to chat with two other law enforcement officers posing as minors on the same messaging application, discussing oral sex with one officer who stated she was only 14 years old.

Sexton faces up to thirty years in prison when sentenced on May 19, 2020.

The investigation was the result of an undercover operation conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s West Virginia Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force, which included task force officers from the Raleigh and Mercer County Sheriffs’ Departments.  

Senior United States Senior Judge David A. Faber presided over the trial. Assistant United States Attorneys Jennifer Rada Herrald and Kathleen Robeson handled the prosecution.

8 men who thought they were meeting children for sex are arrested in Arlington, police say

A ninth man arrested during the operation faces drug and weapon charges.

By Tom Steele

Authorities arrested eight men last week on charges of trying to solicit children for sex in an operation by Arlington police, the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety.

According to police, the men thought they were chatting online with children ages 13 to 16 and were taken into custody when they arrived at an Arlington location where they had arranged to meet the teens for sex.

Eight men were arrested on charges of online solicitation of a minor: Francisco Carreon, 60; Davion Carter, 24; Enrico Garcia, 25; Michael Owonifari, 19; Christopher Pintek, 46; Joshua Price, 23; Brian Watt, 36; and Christian Weitmann, 24.

Carter also was held on outstanding warrants; Garcia faces a drug-possession charge; and Price also faces charges of assault on a public servant and resisting arrest. All eight men have bonded out of custody.

Top row, from left: Francisco Carreon, Davion Carter, Enrico Garcia, Michael Owonifari. Bottom row, from left: Christopher Pintek, Joshua Price, Brian Watt, Christian Weitmann.
Top row, from left: Francisco Carreon, Davion Carter, Enrico Garcia, Michael Owonifari. Bottom row, from left: Christopher Pintek, Joshua Price, Brian Watt, Christian Weitmann.(Arlington Police Department)

A ninth man, Richard Wilson, 38, was arrested on drug and weapon charges, as well as outstanding warrants. Police said he drove one of the solicitation suspects to the location.

Police said more arrests could be made, as 10 people did not show up at the meeting spot.

“The collaboration between Texas DPS, the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office and Arlington PD demonstrates our commitment to identifying and arresting these individuals who prey on our most vulnerable victims, our children,” police Chief Will Johnson said in a statement. “We will continue to partner with other law enforcement agencies with these types of operations to send a clear message to the criminal element that we will not tolerate this type of behavior in our community.”

13-Year-Old Florida Girl Sold To More Than 100 Men For Sex In Less Than A Month In Trafficking Operation

The teen reportedly was sold for sex so many times, the traffickers nicknamed her "breadmaker," the court document stated.

With more parents and young adults being increasingly vigilant about sex trafficking, one Florida teenager’s story reinforces the perils of the predatory act.

The teenager said she ran away from home and was subsequently recruited by sex traffickers, including women police later identified as Souprina Blanc and 19-year-old Racquel Bijou. According to the criminal complaint filed by the girl, both Blanc and Bijou insisted that she have sex in exchange for money with several older men, some reportedly at least 50 years old.

Despite the girl reportedly telling Bijou that she was underage, she was instructed to tell everyone she was 21.

The Sun-Sentinel reports that the document also detailed an instance where Bijou allegedly told the girl to take photos of herself which were later sent to 22-year-old Jeremiah Horenstein and 25-year-old Ashton Lewinson. The two men reportedly posted photos of the girl to a backpage website, advertising sex work. Following the ad being posted, the girl was instructed to sleep with more than 100 men.

According to the document, she was sold for sex so much that her traffickers dubbed her “breadmaker.”

After disappearing, the teen contacted a family member via text, telling them that she had sex with “so many people.” Frightened about the girl’s safety, the family member provided authorities with the teen’s phone records.

Investigators in Miami-Dade County and the FBI’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force were able to plan a sting operation on June 11, during which the girl was recovered and Blanc was arrested.

According to court documents, officers found an unidentified female naked in the bedroom and a naked man hiding in the shower during the sting.

Bijou, Horenstein and Lewinson were subsequently arrested in August and November.  All four suspects are charged with sex trafficking a minor and are being held without bond. Bijou pleaded guilty on November 19. If convicted, the defendants could face a maximum of life in prison.

In recent months, there's been heightened awareness around human trafficking.

In February, an Atlanta-area sex-trafficking sting led to the arrests of 169 people around the time of Super Bowl LIII. Nine children were rescued during the operation reports 11Alive. Additionally, individual stories of sex traffickers and their victims have become increasingly repeated occurrences in news cycles.

On Thursday, a North Carolina man was sentenced to prison for sex trafficking a minor in Miami, CBS Miami reports. She eventually escaped him. Earlier this year, after a New Jersey teen was missing, her photos later appeared on sex trafficking websites. She was later found safe in Philadelphia as Blavity previously reported.

The National Human Trafficking Hotline can be reached at 1-888-373-7888.

BLAVITY : NEWS

U.S. Attorney Announces Charges Against West Point Staff Sergeant For Distributing Child Pornography

Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced the arrest of PATRICK EDWIN GORYCHKA for distributing child pornography.  GORYCHKA was arrested yesterday and presented before U.S. Magistrate Judge Judith McCarthy in White Plains federal court and released on bail.

 According to the Complaint[1] filed yesterday in White Plains federal court:           

In October 2019, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) received information from an FBI Online Undercover Employee (“UC-1”) concerning UC-1’s communications with an individual using the Kik user name “epg84” (“User-1”) in a Kik chat room known to be frequented by individuals with a sexual interest in children.  UC-1 identified himself as a 48-year-old uncle who had engaged in sex acts with his niece.  User-1, who identified himself as “Eric G.,” asked UC-1 for photos of UC-1’s niece.  UC-1 told User-1 that UC-1 had met a “pedo mom” (“UC-2”) in New York.  UC-1 told User-1 that “she keeps kids of illegals while they work for a couple weeks” and “makes some $ on the side.”  User-1 stated, “Omg that’s hot” and asked UC-1 to connect him to UC-2.   

Thereafter, UC-2, going by the name “Jane,” and User-1 engaged in numerous communications from in or about October 31, 2019, through in or about November 16, 2019.  During these communications, User-1 said he was interested in “preteens” and told UC-2, “I heard that you could potentially facilitate certain things.”  User-1 said that he was interested in a “similar setup” as UC-1 and told UC-2, “I have money.” 

On November 2, 2019, User-1 transmitted two links to Mega, a New Zealand-based cloud storage platform that permits users to store and share ESI, including images and videos. [2]  Both links contained numerous images and videos of children engaging in sexually explicit activity.

*                *                *

GORYCHKA, 37, of New Windsor, New York, is charged with one count of distribution and receipt of child pornography, which carries a minimum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.  The statutory minimum and maximum sentences are prescribed by Congress and are provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the judge.

Mr. Berman praised the efforts of the FBI, West Point’s Criminal Investigation Division, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Town of New Windsor Police Department, in connection with this investigation.  He added that the investigation is ongoing.                     

The prosecution is being handled by the Office’s White Plains Division.  Assistant United States Attorney Marcia S. Cohen is in charge of the prosecution.  

---

[1] As the introductory phrase signifies, the entirety of the text of the Complaint and the description of the Complaint set forth herein constitute only allegations, and every fact described should be treated as an allegation.

[2] With respect to Mega, a user can send a link to a Mega cloud account to another person.  Once the link to the Mega cloud account is transmitted, the person who clicks on the link to the cloud account can access, view, and download the files contained in that Mega cloud account.

Attachment(s): 

Download Patrick Edwin Gorychka_complaint_1.pdf

Topic(s): 

Project Safe Childhood

Component(s): 

USAO - New York, Southern

Contact: 

Jim Margolin, Nicholas Biase (212) 637-2600

Press Release Number: 

19-414

Trinity Mount Ministries - DOJ - PROJECT SAFE CHILDHOOD - Justice News - UPDATE - 12/13/2019

PROJECT SAFE CHILDHOOD

Project Safe Childhood is a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice.  Led by the U.S. Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims.

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RESOURCES

Amber Alert

iKeepSafe

INOBTR ("I Know Better")

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

Office of Educational Technology Internet Safety

Read the Project Safe Childhood Fact Sheet »

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