“Welcome to Video”, a child pornography market that offered purchase and download of thousands of videos of under-aged individuals had been taken down earlier. But during the period of its uptime, several people, along with the paedophiles, have utilized the child abuse content, which is now coming to light. A similar case has been uncovered off late from Pennsylvania. A 57-year-old man named Anthony Bellisario has been admitted for using the website Welcome To Video. He has also accepted of uploading content in return of free video access on the site.
As the Department of Justice states, Welcome To Video was the largest child pornography community as considered by its content volume. The market was run by a 25-year-old man named Jong Woo Son, a resident of South Korea from June 2015 to March 2018. The admin of the child pornography market was arrested following an international investigation on the 5th of March, 2018. He had served two years of imprisonment and had completed his sentence back in April 2020.
While the investigation was still on, law enforcement had identified 250,000 unique videos. The videos have helped the authorities to discover and rescue 23 victims who have fallen prey to this racket. The investigators have been examining the blockchain for all the transactions that are associated with the website’s Bitcoin (BTC) address. It had received over 420 Bitcoins from the various users of Welcome To Video, as the investigators found.
With the aid of this Blockchain analysis, the investigators could identify many of the suspected users of the child pornography market website in the US. According to the court documents, the users have determined Bellisario to be one of the different people who had sent money to the BTC address of Welcome To Video. He had paid for 1,673 videos utilizing the Bitcoin. He has also been accused of uploading unique content against access to free video on the website, which is an offence that has been raised base offence level from 22 to 27. The quantity and the type of videos have helped the government to raise the offence level of Bellisario to 40.
The accused has provided Homeland Security Investigations law enforcement officers with a significant portion of the information that is used in the criminal complaint like:
BELLISARIO stated he usually views child pornography when he is under the influence of drugs, namely cocaine. BELLISARIO was asked if he currently had any narcotics in residence, to which he stated, “yes, in my dresser drawer, they have probably already found it.”
While the search warrant has been executed, the investigators have found out two laptops. Both the laptops bore over 1,000 unique videos, as the investigators have found out.
Bellisario has pleaded guilty to a single count of possession of child pornography and a single count of knowingly accessing the child pornography content with the intention of viewing it. The first charge offers him a minimum of five years of imprisonment along with a statutory maximum of 20 years behind bars. The level of increase in offence from 22 to 40 points will increase the sentence significantly. It has been known that his sentencing hearing has been scheduled for the 5th of January, 2021.
Source: DarknetLive
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