In an Associated Press Big Story report today I was appalled at the number of innocent children being lured into posting sexually explicit images of their bodies and they’re then shared online through images and videos on an underground website on the Tor network which is an online anonymity network which masks the locations of its servers and conceals internet user’s location.
This subscription-based website actually operated from June 2012 and June 2013; and in my opinion, this is an awakening for readers of this article to realize it had more than 27,000 members, according to authorities. It is my belief that this is incomprehensible for normal citizens of a country.
Don’t these alleged criminals care what they’re doing to innocent children throughout the world and the children will live with the consequences during their entire lives. Most of these young children are already subjected to terrible lifestyles and living conditions and their lives don’t offer them a good life as it is, where’s the conscious of these people I ask? These are helpless children without a voice to speak for them other than those who are doing them harm.
In my opinion I applaud the investigations led by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Postal Inspection Service for the work they’re accomplishing to stamp out these criminal acts.
During a recent investigation they located 250 victims and they were spread across 39 states and five other countries, i.e., Australia, Belgium, Canada and New Zealand. This is hard for me to comprehend that there was two children who were 3 or younger. The majority of the 250 victims were boys between the ages of 13 and 15.
It was enlightening when I read fourteen men had been charged for operating an online child exploitation network that according to investigators was preying upon hundreds of boys across the United States and overseas, stated authorities on Tuesday.
Law enforcement officials also stated these arrests are a part of a troublesome and taxing trend happening to children throughout the world. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said, “Perpetrators allegedly prey on the most innocent, most vulnerable members of our society and they have no regards whatsoever to the instant or lasting harm that they’ve caused to these young victims and to their families.”
The man authorities say was the administrator of the network along with eleven of the fourteen men, are being prosecuted in Louisiana; and the remaining three are being charged in New York, Colorado and Wisconsin.
Authorities are accusing, Jonathan Johnson of Abita Springs, La., as the leader of the operation; and stating, “He admitted creating multiple fake female personas from his home and encouraged others to do the same in an effort to entice boys to produce sexually explicit images of themselves.”
Court papers show Johnson was charged last month through criminal information, a document that can only be filed with the consent of a defendant; and it signals a guilty plea.
A call to Johnson’s lawyer requesting information on Tuesday was not immediately returned.
Barbara Kasey Smith is the writer of this article and it is based on the Associated Press’s Big Story.
Source:
Associated Press.Com