Anonymous ID: 55f720 June 22, 2020, 11:54 p.m. No.9715765   🗄️.is đź”—kun   >>5782 >>5801 >>5829 >>5855

https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndtx/pr/us-attorney-s-office-shuts-down-website-promoting-prostitution-and-sex-trafficking

 

U.S. Attorney’s Office Shuts Down Website Promoting Prostitution and Sex Trafficking, Indicts Owner

 

The website CityXGuide.com — a leading source of online advertisements for prostitution and sex trafficking that users described as “taking over from where Backpage left off” — has been seized and its owner charged in a 28-count federal indictment, announced United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Erin Nealy Cox.

 

Wilhan Martono, 46, was indicted on June 2 on one count of promotion of prostitution and reckless disregard of sex trafficking, one count of interstate racketeering conspiracy (facilitating prostitution), nine counts of interstate transportation in aid of racketeering (facilitating prostitution), and 17 counts of money laundering. He was arrested on June 17 in Fremont, California by Homeland Security Investigations and the United States Secret Service.

 

Shortly after the defendant’s arrest, CityXGuide was replaced with a splash page notifying users that the website had been seized by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security pursuant to a warrant.

 

According to the indictment, Mr. Martono allegedly netted more than $21 million off a suite of illicit websites promoting prostitution and sex trafficking. He allegedly registered the domain names for several of the sites just one day after the FBI shut down Backpage.com, then the internet’s leading source of prostitution and sex trafficking advertisements.

 

Despite Terms of Use purportedly forbidding the advertisement of illegal sexual services, CityXGuide and its affiliated websites (Backpage.co, CAPleasures.com, and BodyRubShop.com, among others) allegedly allowed brothels, pimps, and prostitutes to post hundreds of thousands of advertisements for sexual services, which users could then filter by geography and preference.

 

In correspondence with Mr. Martono, one of his CityXGuide advertisers noted that the website was “taking over from where Backpage left off.”

 

CityXGuide and its companion websites allegedly allowed advertisers to select from a pre-populated list of “intimate activities,” then add nude photographs, descriptions, work hours, methods of payment, and contact information for the women being advertised. In order to secure premium placement, the websites offered paid “upgrades,” which could be purchased in Bitcoin or in exchange for gift cards from Walmart, Best Buy, Lowe’s, Amazon, and other retailers. Mr. Martono allegedly used CardCash, a third party gift card reseller, to exchange these gift cards for U.S. currency.

 

Mr. Martono allegedly took steps to conceal his online activity by routing website traffic through an IP address in Europe, using a VPN to mask his IP address while conducting CardCash transactions, and funneling his proceeds through a network of business and personal bank accounts. (At the time of Mr. Martono’s arrest, the Department of Homeland Security seized millions of dollars from accounts controlled by Mr. Martono.)

 

CityXGuide, which served clients across the globe, included a list of 14 “Favorite Cities,” including Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, and Boston.

 

Law enforcement has identified numerous minor victims in CityXGuide advertisements, including a 13-year-old Jane Doe recovered in North Texas in November 2019.

 

“As soon as DOJ shut down one despicable site, another popped up to take its place,” said U.S. Attorney Erin Nealy Cox. “Like the owners of Backpage, this defendant made millions facilitating the online exploitation of women and children. The Justice Department will not rest until these sites are eliminated and their owners held accountable for their crimes.”

 

“This case is a harsh reminder of the ruthlessness of human traffickers and lengths to which they go, including victimizing women and children, to make a profit,”

There are real innocent victims due to these crimes. The Secret Service also thanks the Northern District of Texas United States Attorney’s Office for their aggressive support.”

 

“I’m proud of our team who, with our federal partners, relentlessly pursued this investigation for more than a year. Today, we have made a significant impact on one of the world’s largest digital marketplaces for prostitution and sex trafficking. We know many lives will be saved through this joint effort,” said Michael C. Miller, Chief of Police for the Colleyville Police Department.

 

If convicted, he faces up to 25 years in federal prison.

 

Mr. Martono was charged in part under FOSTA, a law passed in the wake of the Backpage scandal in April 2018 that allows the federal government to prosecute websites that facilitate sex trafficking.

Anonymous ID: 55f720 June 23, 2020, midnight No.9715798   🗄️.is đź”—kun   >>5811 >>5829 >>5855

DEPORT NOW

 

https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndtx/pr/abilene-man-convicted-trial-enticing-minor-engage-sexual-activity

 

Abilene Man Convicted at Trial for Enticing Minor to Engage in Sexual Activity

 

An Abilene man was convicted at trial for attempted enticement of a minor, announced U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Erin Nealy Cox.

 

On Monday, a federal jury deliberated for just seven minutes before finding Carlito Santiago Santos, 47, guilty of attempted enticement of a minor. Mr. Santos was indicted in October 2019.

 

According to the evidence presented at trial, Abilene Police Department created an undercover online persona of “Tyler,” a 15-year-old boy, and placed his profile on Grindr, a social media dating platform for GBTQ men.

 

Mr. Santos sent multiple illicit message to Tyler. In reply, Tyler told Mr. Santos that he was 15 years old and sent an age-regressed photo of a 15-year-old boy. Mr. Santos agreed to meet Tyler at an apartment complex in Abilene to engage in sexual activity. When Mr. Santos arrived he was arrested by law enforcement.

 

During interviews conducted by the Texas Department of Public Safety, Mr. Santos, a native of the Philippines where he worked as a pediatrician, admitted that he had a sexual interest in children because he found them “energetic” and “innocent.” Mr. Santos said he frequently viewed child pornography and ultimately admitted to molesting approximately fifteen children while in the Philippines.

 

The defendant faces a potential sentence of up to life in federal prison. His sentencing date is set for September 15, 2020.

Anonymous ID: 55f720 June 23, 2020, 12:08 a.m. No.9715847   🗄️.is đź”—kun   >>5855 >>5856

Another why isn't he stripped of his citizenship AND DEPORTED.

 

ttps://www.justice.gov/usao-ndtx/pr/man-receives-maximum-sentence-ddos-attack-legal-news-aggregator

 

Man Receives Maximum Sentence for DDoS Attack on Legal News Aggregator

 

An Iranian-born, U.S. naturalized 40-year-old man who launched multiple international cyber-attacks on media, bloggers, and legal news aggregation websites was sentenced on Monday to five years in federal prison and ordered to pay more than $520,000 in restitution, announced U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Erin Nealy Cox.

 

The defendant, born Kamyar Jahanrakhshan, changed his name to Andrew Rakhshan when naturalized as a US citizen. Mr. Rakhshan pleaded guilty in February 2020 to conspiracy to commit computer fraud. The sentencing judge, U.S. District Judge David C. Godbey, accepted the plea agreement which statutorily limited the defendant’s maximum sentence to 60 month incarceration.

 

According to plea papers, Mr. Rakhshan admitted to conspiring with others to launch a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack in January 2015 on Leagle.com, a legal aggregation site that had posted publicly available information about his prior criminal conviction in Canada. Leagle.com’s website was hosted by a provider located in Dallas, Texas.

 

Upon his arrest in July 2017, at his residence in a suburb of Seattle, Washington, Mr. Rakhshan was detained pending the outcome of the case.

 

At his original trial in March 2018, a federal jury voted to convict Mr. Rakhshan of knowingly causing the transmission of a command to a protected computer, an offense that carried a 10 year maximum prison term. However, in July 2018, Judge Godbey granted a defense motion for a new trial based on the defense attorneys’ sworn admissions that they were ineffective in representing their client at trial. In April 2019, the government superseded the original indictment, adding the conspiracy charge. Mr. Rakhshan elected to plead guilty to the conspiracy charge on the morning his re-trial was to begin. He received the statutory maximum sentence for his guilty plea, although the Judge implied that the sentence would have been higher had there not been a statutory maximum.

 

Testimony and evidence from the trial established that when attacking each victim, Mr. Rakhshan followed the same pattern. First he would contact the targeted site and request that the site remove any publically available information about his 2013 criminal conviction in Canada. Mr. Rakhshan initially claimed that the similarity of his name to the convicted person’s name was ruining his life. When the websites refused to remove the data, Mr. Rakhshan first offered bribes to compel their compliance, then escalated his conduct through emails and faxes, by threatening to attack the site or associated sites. In some instances, Mr. Rakhshan threatened to call in bomb threats. Often, after initiating a successful DDoS attack, Mr. Rakhshan would contact the victim, admit to being the convicted person, brag about the successful attack, and threaten additional attacks.

 

Mr. Rakhshan purchased services from various booter services, such as ItsFluffy and RageBooter, to deploy the DDoS attack. The services offered by Rakhshan’s coconspirators allowed Mr. Rakhshan to flood the websites with traffic, overwhelming the servers and disabling the sites. Mr. Rakhshan initiated multiple DDoS attacks against each victim, and most victims removed the data to stop the attacks.

 

This guy LIED ALOT! Boot him bye bye, chip him and never let him back in.