Seven Convicted of Global Child Porn Trafficking in Florida

A federal court jury in Florida convicted seven people of participating in a global child pornography trafficking enterprise, according to the Department of Justice.

Jurors convicted the seven Wednesday of multiple counts of child exploitation, pornography and obstruction of justice.

Members of the organization used Internet news groups to swap and share "illegal images and videos depicting prepubescent children, including toddlers, engaged in various sexual and sadistic acts," prosecutors said.

An indictment filed in the case detailed interactions between group members as they swapped and commented on images.

"My thanks to you and all the others that together make this the greatest group of pedos to ever gather in one place," Freeman wrote in response to one posting, according to the indictment. And a posting from Castleman, cited in the indictment, read, "Thanks to all for the wonderful material that has been posted."

An Australian constable who infiltrated the group in August 2006 was among 50 witnesses testifying at trial. He told the jury that the group traded more than 400,000 images and videos of child sexual abuse before being dismantled by law enforcement, according to the Justice Department statement.

Each defendant faces a sentence of 20 years to life in prison, fines and the possibility of supervised release for the rest of their lives, authorities said. The seven will be sentenced April 14.

During the six-day trial, evidence showed the seven participated in what prosecutors called a "well-organized criminal enterprise whose purpose was to proliferate child sex abuse images to its membership during a two-year period."

"This was a wide-scale, high-volume, international trafficking enterprise that used sophisticated computer encryption technology and file-sharing techniques," Matthew Friedrich, acting assistant attorney general, said in the statement.

The seven defendants were James Freeman of Santa Rosa Beach, Florida; Gary Lakey of Anderson, Indiana; Marvin Lambert of Indianapolis, Indiana; Neville McGarity of Medina, Texas; Warren Mumpower of Spokane, Washington; Daniel Castleman of Lubbock, Texas; and Ronald White of Burlington, North Carolina, according to the Department of Justice.

The charges included engaging in a child exploitation enterprise; conspiracy to advertise, transport, ship, receive and possess child pornography; advertising child pornography, transporting child pornography, receiving child pornography and obstruction of justice, prosecutors said.

Seven additional American defendants previously entered guilty pleas, prosecutors said.

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Authorities Crack Down On School Girls For Child Prostitution

Ryann Connell
Japanese authorities finally appear to be taking steps to crack down on the widespread proliferation of child cheesecake, according to Weekly Playboy.

Just a few years ago, pictures of scantily clad high school girls would have created outrage, but it has now become common to see magazines, billboards and all sorts of other media plastered with images of G-string-clad girls in their pre-teens.

But a series of police raids late last year on producers of a photo shoot DVD starring a schoolgirl appear to have changed the situation.

"The girl's swimsuit was deliberately made to be see-through, it was so tight-fitting you could make out the shape of her genitalia and she'd been posed in such risqu? positions that the Metropolitan Police Department decided to arrest the maker for breaking the law banning child pornography even though the girl hadn't actually exposed her bust or between her legs," a reporter from a sports newspaper tells Weekly Playboy.

The arrest was the first time somebody had been picked up for breaking the Child Pornography Law without proliferating images featuring nudity. Eventually, though, the charge had to be downgraded to a violation of the Child Welfare Law, but the effect of the arrest reached far.

"Ever since the arrest, makers of products featuring teens in erotic poses have been in a state of panic. If material is judged to be overly obscene, people can be arrested for breaking the Child Pornography Law, even if the model is dressed in a swimsuit," says an employee of a medium-sized DVD manufacturer producing material featuring models under 15 years old. "DVD shops and wholesalers are now on their guard and have stopped taking materials featuring models under 15, even if the product looks like being a surefire seller."

Furi Nakamura, a journalist who specializes in covering the under-15 market, says there is a definite mood of self-restraint spreading among purveyors of photo collections and DVDs using child cheesecake.

"Situations are going to become crucial," the under-15 expert tells Weekly Playboy. "By that, I mean the situations where models are presented. Say, for example, a young model is decked out in an extremely skimpy bikini, the maker won't get in trouble if the photos are taken in an appropriate situation, like a pool or the beach. It's when you get the young models lying around on a bed, making provocative poses and stuff, that you're going to have the real problems -- even if they're wearing standard school-issue swimsuits, which aren't revealing at all. The key is going to be how natural producers will be able to make their images appear."

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Foreign Teachers Now On Child Pornography Watch In Thailand

Thai police may begin making background checks on foreign teachers after arresting two on pornography- related charges in less than two weeks, authorities said this week.

"It shouldn't be enough to wear white shirts and have a university degree. We need to know their background," said police Col. Apichart Suribunya, head of Thailand's liaison office for Interpol, the international police agency.

Paul Cornelius Jones, 39, who has lived in Thailand for seven years, was arrested Tuesday after police raided his Bangkok apartment and found a computer containing hundreds of photos of naked boys and girls, Apichart said.

His arrest came after Thai police arrested Christopher Paul Neil of Canada on Oct. 19 on charges of having sex with several young Asian boys.

Jones was arrested after a tip-off from British counterparts, who told police Jones had been sending photos of naked children to Britain over the Internet, Apichart said.

Jones had been working as a teacher at a Bangkok private school, police said.

"It's easy for teachers to gain trust and respect from people, especially in Asian cultures which hold teachers in high regard," Apichart said.

He said police would seek records of any convictions in home countries and from Thai immigration police before teachers are hired. Police also are considering background checks of foreign teachers already in Thailand, he said.

"Academic background is one thing, but we need to also check for other information," Apichart said.

There are more than 1,000 foreign teachers legally working in Thailand, he said.

Jones, of Cardiff, Wales, has been charged with distributing pornographic photographs of children under age 15, which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, Apichart said.

Another officer in the Thai Interpol office, Maj. Phongphon Iamwicharn, said Jones did not appear in the photos, and that there was evidence he had sold the pictures.

Thailand became a focus of cases of sexual abuse of children after Interpol began a manhunt for an alleged child abuser, Christopher Paul Neil, earlier this month. It issued an unprecedented worldwide appeal to identify and apprehend him.

Interpol found about 200 pictures on the Internet of Thai, Cambodian and Vietnamese boys being sexually abused by a man whose face was digitally obscured. German police computer experts unscrambled the photos so the man's face was recognizable and tip-offs led Interpol to identify Neil as a suspect.

He was arrested by Thai police and charged with child sexual abuse, but police are still investigating the case.

Neil has also worked as a teacher at schools in Thailand, South Korea and Vietnam.

Several Southeast Asian countries are popular among pedophiles and sex abusers because of poverty that drives children and their parents to accept money for sexual favors, and sometimes because of lax law enforcement.

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