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 (surname withheld) was apprehended at his condominium in Bang Lamung district on March 5, following an arrest warrant issued by the Criminal Court on March 3.
TCSD commander Pol Maj Gen Athip Pongsiwapai told media on Tuesday that the investigation started with a tip-off from HSI, which 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 like Bitcoin and Monero to access the material. The payments were credited to user accounts, allowing them to watch or download videos.
Upon tracing Steffen’s digital financial transactions, investigators discovered that the suspect had been transferring the membership fees to his digital wallets. The funds were then converted into various currencies, eventually being exchanged into Thai baht and transferred into Steffen's bank accounts in Thailand.
The suspect faces multiple charges, including possession of child pornography for sexual exploitation, distributing child pornography for commercial purposes, distributing, producing, having, importing or exporting child pornography out of the Kingdom, engaging in trade or being a part of or involved in child pornography.
The commander 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 illicit income.
Police officers also seized his laptop, a network computer, a mobile phone, a storage device containing 140,000 pornographic files, as well as bank account records, credit cards, and SIM cards.