US agents track Bitcoin transactions, finding and arresting the world’s largest child porn network tycoon

Recently, an international task force from the United Kingdom, the United States, South Korea and Germany has collaborated for three years to explore a child porn site called “Welcome to Video” and arrest 337 users from 12 Different countries, including 223 Koreans.

The character behind this porn site is Son Jong Woo, 23, a Korean national. He was arrested last year and is currently serving an 18-month prison term in South Korea. Son Jong Woo also faces charges of 9 charges in the US.

Notably, the case of abolishing the child porn site also caught the attention of many technology news sites, as the Korean-American investigation agency gathered clues through tracking activities. Bitcoin transactions.

The interface of the “Welcome to Video” page (Image: Bloomberg)

Since its inception, Bitcoin has been considered an anonymous remittance method. With the nature of being able to conceal the sender / receiver’s identity, trading in virtual currencies always makes it difficult for law enforcement forces to track cybercriminals. This is why virtual currencies, including Bitcoin, have always been chosen by criminals in illegal online payment transactions.

However, with the case of Son Jong Woo, who is behind the porn site Welcome to Video, the search for his name through Bitcoin transactions has been unexpectedly unexpected.

The sky cage is sparse but it is difficult to escape, even on virtual networks

According to Wired, “Welcome to Video” was one of the first websites that used to sell child pornography using cryptocurrency. If you want to see content on the site, users who have a sexual interest will have to pay to sign in with bitcoin. For the convenience of paying the fee, the porn site even offered each user a unique bitcoin wallet address when creating an account.

It is known that during the operation of the “Welcome to Video” site, Son Jong Woo collected about 415 bitcoins (about 336,417 USD) thanks to the distribution of 250,000 child pornography videos.

With such a large profit, Son Jong Woo and the operators of the “Welcome to Video” site have used encryption software to help hide their identities like Tor to ‘hide’, thereby avoiding tracking. of local investigating authorities.

In order to track the identity of Son Jong Woo and his accomplices, US agents worked closely with NewYork-based blockchain analyst Chainalysis to track the transactions made through Bitcoin’s wallet. ” Welcome to Video “. The company has provided a software designed specifically for tracking Bitcoin transactions.

First, agents sent a small amount of Bitcoin worth from $ 125 to $ 290 to the “Welcome to Video” Bitcoin wallet address, which was publicly available so that users of this website could pay the fee. . In fact, this wallet address is only a ‘screen’, when the amount of Bitcoin paid by users will immediately be dispersed to other bitcoin wallets to distract.

However, due to the nature of the Blockchain that records and publicizes all virtual currency purchases / sales, agents can know the exact address of the Bitcoin sender / recipient. After tracking the amount of Bitcoin transferred through a series of virtual wallets, agents finally discovered the most suspicious Bitcoin wallet address was set up at a cryptocurrency exchange in Korea.

Based on the personal information provided by the exchange to the investigation agency, agents discovered that the suspicious Bitcoin wallet belonged to Son Jong Woo, when the name used his personal phone number and email. to open an account.

Notably, Son Jong Woo also accidentally left many important traces that allowed law enforcement forces to have more clues. Specifically, the US cybersecurity agency during the “Welcome to Video” investigation discovered two unverified IP addresses managed by an internet service provider in South Korea. According to the information provided by the network, the Korean police knew exactly where Son Jong Woo was staying. When searching his whereabouts, they found the server running the Welcome to Video website.

According to Wired, although the scope of the investigation is very large, US investigators do not need to use too complex digital operations to investigate. Son himself and the users of the “Welcome to The Video” website were also too subjective when they used their real identities to open virtual wallets on virtual currency exchanges, which in general allowed investigators to have easily discoverable. However, with the criminals in the Dark Web world, revealing the truth of these guys has never been easy.