Child Abuse: Creator Of The World’s Largest Child Porn Site Playpen Has Been Sentenced To 30 Years In Prison
Steven Chase, the creator of the world’s largest child porn site Playpen has been sentenced to 30 years in prison after amassing 150,000 users around the world. He created the website in 2014 and acted as lead administrator while people would upload various posts to the site. It would then be indexed by age, gender, and sex act involved.
According to the FBI, the organization began investigating Playpen shortly after the site launched. However, Chase’s use of the dark web made it difficult for the FBI to identify who was behind the site. Despite this, he ran out of luck after he made a critical error that exposed a U.S.-based IP address. This was noticed by a foreign law enforcement agency and the FBI was alerted. Special Agent Dan Alfin said:
“From that point we took normal investigative steps—seized a copy of the website, served search warrants for e-mail accounts, followed the money—and everything led back to Steven Chase”.
Chase was eventually arrested in 2015 at his home in Naples, FL. At the time, Gizmodo reported that a search of the home “turned up thousands of images depicting the sexual abuse of children, many of whom were said to be barely kindergarten age.”
Two co-defendants and fellow administrators were sentenced to 20 years in prison: Michael Fluckiger, 46, of Indiana, and David Browning, 47, of Kentucky.
It’s understood that the FBI are also after Playpen users through Operation Pacifier.
“Members of his enterprise who were raping children, who were producing child pornography all around the world—those cases continue to be indicted and prosecuted,” Alfin said.
According to the FBI, the results of the investigation thus far have resulted in:
At least 350 U.S.-based individuals arrested
25 producers of child pornography prosecuted
51 hands-on abusers prosecuted
55 American children successfully identified or rescued
548 international arrests, with 296 sexually abused children identified or rescued.
