Florida Authorities Bust Massive Global Child Pornography Ring — Over 1M Videos Seized, Including Infants Sexually Assaulted
Attorney General James Uthmeier:
Busting an international child pornography ring. We will be bringing charges against eight individuals this morning, seven of whom are Florida residents. As a dad of three little ones, it’s tough to talk about some of this stuff, but what these guys were doing was truly heinous. There’s not a word in the English dictionary that can describe the gross content that was on the videos.
Our investigators have been able to get their hands on over a million videos showing sexual abuse of minors. Many of these individuals were babies that are being sold around the world. The 2023 National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reports over 36 million instances of suspected child sexual exploitation and over 100 million files related to child sex abuse material. That’s only what’s getting reported.
This continues to be a problem in our country, in our state. Protecting our kids is not an easy task to begin with. Today, with access to the Internet and social media, it allows these sick predators to more easily get access to our kids. As I’ve said, in my first five or six weeks on the job here, that’s going to be a major priority for my office.
The individuals that are being busted today, that purchased this harmful content—many of them found it through TikTok. It was available online. They found access to a portal where they could purchase this dangerous material.
TikTok has shown they can very quickly get stuff off their website. If there’s unlicensed music or something going around, they’ve proven—with the flip of a switch—they can get it off.
And it’s taken too long for them to get some of this pornographic material and avenues to purchase harder, more gross content. We’ve got to get them to be more accountable. We will be working on that.
We are going to hold social media companies accountable that want to put our families and our kids in jeopardy. Today, these eight defendants are being charged with multiple felony counts, including RICO, money laundering, and purchase of child pornography.
Again, I can’t tell you in words how gross this content is, but it shows the dangers—the evil—that’s out there. It is truly evil. You’ve got my word that in this state, we are going to do everything we can to hold these people accountable. If you are a child predator, if you are one of these sick people, then I hope you never see the sun again, and I hope you certainly never have access to kids again.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1909259056260227557