Child porn 'webmaster' arrested near Pattaya
published : 12 Mar 2025 at 07:15
writer: Gary Boyle
ORIGINAL SOURCE/WRITER: Wassayos Ngamkham
A 54-year-old German programmer was arrested in Chon Buri for running a dark website that sold child pornography.
The arrest was a joint operation between the Technology Crime Suppression Division (TCSD) and US Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). The suspect identified only as Steffen was arrested at his condominium in Bang Lamung district on March 5.
HSI had tracked Steffen’s involvement in running a dark web site for selling child pornography. HSI believed that the suspect had operated the website for three years. The site featured various types of explicit content, with users paying in cryptocurrencies to access the material.
TCSD said he admitted to the charges, stating that after retiring from his programming job in Germany, he relocated to Thailand. He explained that he was the administrator of two dark web sites that offered over 5,000 child pornography videos. These websites had a combined total of more than 10,000 subscribers, generating an estimated 3.5 million baht in income.
Vocabulary
- administrator: someone whose job is to manage a business, organisation, or institution - ผู้บริหาร, ผู้บริหารกิจการ
- charge : an official statement accusing someone of committing a crime - ข้อกล่าวหา
- cryptocurrency (noun): one of a number of currencies used as digital cash without involving the banking system -
- dark web (n): the part of the World Wide Web that is only accessible by means of special software, allowing users and website operators to remain anonymous or untraceable -
- explicit (adj): describing or representing sexual activity in a detailed and graphic way -
- pornography: books, magazines, DVDs, etc. that describe or show naked people and sexual acts in order to make people feel sexually excited, especially in a way that many other people find offensive - หนังสือ ภาพ เรื่องเขียน หนังและศิลปะที่ลามก
- retire: to stop working because you have reached the age where you are officially too old to work - เกษียณอายุ
- suppression: stopping an activity from happening, in this case, criminal activity - การปราบปราม
- suspect: a person who is thought to have committed a crime - ผู้ต้องสงสัย
- track: to follow the development or progress of something - ติดตาม
- webmaster (noun): a person who is responsible for particular pages of information on the World Wide Web - ผู้ดูแลเว็บไซต์
