Seventy-two people have been charged with or have already admitted being part of a worldwide organization of pedophiles that made, distributed and wallowed in the worst kind of child pornography, much of it violent, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security announced on Wednesday.
The joint law enforcement effort, dubbed Operation Delego, “represents the largest prosecution to date in the United States of individuals who participated in an online bulletin board conceived and operated for the sole purpose of promoting child sexual abuse, disseminating child pornography and evading law enforcement,” the agencies said.
Hundreds of other suspects are being sought in connection with the operation, launched in December 2009, the DOJ and DHS said.
The 72 defendants, 52 of whom have been arrested in the United States and abroad, were part of a private online bulletin board whose members tried to outdo one another in depravity while hiding behind the anonymity of the Internet, Attorney General Eric Holder and DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano said.
Perversely named Dreamboard, the online smut ring “shared a demented dream to create the preeminent online community for the promotion of child sexual exploitation, but for the children they victimized, this was nothing short of a nightmare,” Holder said.
Targeting children 12 and younger, Dreamboard members had a sick hierarchy, with the most “prestige” attaching to those who actually molested children, made videotapes of their acts and shared the smut with board administrators, according to the agencies. The bulletin board included “rules of conduct,” printed in English, Russian, Japanese and Spanish.
All 72 of the defendants are charged with conspiring to advertise and distribute child pornography, and 50 of them are also charged with engaging in a child pornography enterprise. Thirteen of the 52 individuals already arrested have pleaded guilty, and four of those who pleaded guilty have been sentenced to terms ranging from 20 to 30 years. The 20 suspects who remain at large are known only by their online identities, the DOJ and DHS said.
There has been a continuing debate at DOJ over what kinds of pornography to pursue and how to do it, as Main Justice reported in May. Some have argued that the DOJ should go after all kinds of smut, while others say the main target should be material that exploits children. In any event, it is axiomatic in the courts and in law enforcement circles that children deserve special protection.
“This operation is an example of the good work that DHS, through its principal investigative arm, ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), does every year in cooperation with our domestic and international law enforcement partners to protect children,” Napolitano said.
This is good news.