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U.S., Russia Break Up Internet Child Porn Ring
U.S. authorities said on Monday they had broken up an Internet child pornography ring based in Russia and arrested nine people in a joint operation with Moscow police.
The U.S. Customs Service said four Americans and five Russians had been arrested following a year-long investigation into the sale of explicit child pornography videos over the Internet, mainly to Americans, from a Web site called "Blue Orchid" run from a Moscow apartment.
The United States is conducting more than 20 separate investigations for child porn distribution and manufacturing as a result of Operation Blue Orchid and officials expect to make many more arrests, according to Dennis Murphy, an assistant U.S. Customs Service commissioner.
Investigations are also underway in Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands.
"We have to send a message: those who are using the Internet this way cannot hide," Acting U.S. Customs Commissioner Charles Winwood said at a news conference in Washington announcing the arrests.
The "Blue Orchid" site operated from March to December last year and sold several hundred videos to at least 80 customers world-wide, Delli-Colli said.
The films, which sold for $200 to $300 per video, featured sexual abuse of young Russian boys. Just before the site was shut down, the group had begun making child porn films to order and charging $5,000 per video,the head of the U.S. Custom's Cybersmuggling Center, Kevin Delli-Colli, said at the news conference.
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