The Guardian did an excellent article about this, explaining how the porn
industry supplements it's income with payment (debit/credit) card fraud. This
explains how innocent people, who are victims of credit card fraud, get accused
of crimes they didn't commit:
"One method used from 1999 by criminals, including the Gambino mafia family in
the US, was to offer free tours, or access for a credit card payment as small
as $1.95, to adult sex sites. Customers had to provide name, address, card
details, and email address and password. The criminals then reused the data or
traded them online with other fraudsters.
Operating out of Indonesia, Russia or Brazil, many of the webmasters linked via
Landslide appear to have obtained and swapped lists of stolen cards and charged
them up through different portals, usually for amounts of less than $50 - small
enough that unwary people might not spot them on a credit card statement."
The current arrests stem from a larger investigation, where a US based child
porn website (Landslide Inc.) was investigated, revealing 250,000 credit card
numbers (used on the site), belonging to card holders, worldwide.
Copies of the hard drives were provided to British law enforcement.
Subsequently, thousands of British citizens were investigated, as a result of
having their credit card number show up as having paid for Landslide's seedy
services.
The investigation began in 1999 and was conducted by the United States Postal
Inspection Service and Dallas Police Department. It exposed how the Internet is
used to commit this disgusting crime (child pornography), globally, with the
click of a mouse.
The investigation tracked activity to 60 different countries. 120 people were
eventually arrested in the United States. Pete Townsend, the Who's guitarist
was arrested for viewing child porngraphy in this investigation, also.
54,348 of the credit card numbers discovered in the US search warrant were
identified as having been stolen from Levenger Incorporated, a luxury goods
company. Of course, Levenger declined to comment on how the information was
stolen.
The Guardian article makes a clear argument that many more of the numbers taken
in the search warrant could have been stolen (in a lot of places) and used on
the Landslide site.
The sheer amount of stolen information and fraudulent payment devices
circulating via the Internet is victimizing innocent people, and more than
likely giving guilty people, plausible deniability.
Not everyone caught in this was a victim of credit card fraud. Exploiting
children is one of the most disgusting crimes I can think of. People, who
exploit children, deserve to be punished, severely.
It's apparent that our inability to address the source(s) of crime on the
Internet is having very severe consequences on the people, who are victimized
by it.
Innocent, or guilty, 39 people have committed suicide over this. Wouldnˇ¦t it
be nice if some of these child pornographers/credit card fraudsters could be
charged with murder, or at least manslaughter?
