New York arrests 71 in child porn case
Two police officers, a rabbi and a Boy Scout leader are among 70 men and one woman arrested on child pornography charges in the largest such bust in New York, officials said on Wednesday.
Over five weeks, investigators impounded nearly 600 computers, laptops, tablets, smartphones and thumb drives containing tens of thousands of pornographic images and videos of children.
Among the defendants are one with a previous child sex abuse conviction and a woman charged with producing and distributing pornography involving her own young child, US officials said.
They also include two nurses, a paramedic, an au pair, and a Boy Scout den master who served as a youth coach.
Officers launched the operation after arresting the head of a police department in Valhalla, New York, in January and a rabbi, who home-schooled children in Brooklyn, in March.
James Hayes, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in New York described the number of suspects and their professional backgrounds as "troubling".
US officials said Operation Caireen, which ran from April 4 to May 15, was the largest ever operation in New York targeting sexual predators of children.
Homeland Security agents, New York police detectives and other law enforcement infiltrated peer-to-peer file-officers sharing networks to identify perpetrators across the New York City area.
Investigators cracked down on nearly 150 IP addresses actively involved in trading child porn in the wider New York City area.
Authorities decided to launch the operation after the arrest in January of the Mount Pleasant, New York, police chief, who pleaded not guilty this week to federal charges of knowingly receiving and distributing child pornography. Court papers allege that Brian Fanelli told investigators he began looking at child porn as research before it grew into a "personal interest".
In May, agents on computers created a digital dragnet with the same tactics used in the Fanelli case: Agents posed as collectors of child porn who wanted to anonymously trade it through file-sharing programs others use to share pirated hit music and movies. Once given access to personal libraries of child porn photos and videos, the agents identified the numeric IP addresses of the sources of the material.
The next step was to subpoena Internet service providers to obtain names associated with the IP addresses. The investigators narrowed the list down to 100 people who were the most active and recent traders, and obtained search and arrest warrants.
AP-AFP
(China Daily 05/23/2014 page12)
