Russian, U.S. Police Break Up International Child Pornography Ring
By Niala Boodhoo
Originally published by Reuters, March 26, 2001
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — U.S. authorities said on Monday they had broken up an Internet child pornography ring based in Russia and arrested nine people in a joint operation with Moscow police.
The U.S. Customs Service said four Americans and five Russians had been arrested following a year-long investigation into the sale of explicit child pornography videos over the Internet, mainly to Americans, from a Web site called "Blue Orchid" run from a Moscow apartment.
The United States is conducting more than 20 separate investigations for child porn distribution and manufacturing as a result of Operation Blue Orchid and officials expect to make many more arrests, according to Dennis Murphy, an assistant U.S. Customs Service commissioner.
"You'll be hearing about arrests and indictments in Blue Orchid for the next two years," he told Reuters.
Investigations are also underway in Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands. "We have to send a message: those who are using the Internet this way cannot hide," Acting U.S. Customs Commissioner Charles Winwood said at a news conference in Washington announcing the arrests.
First Arrests In December
Russian police made the first arrests in December when they took Sergey Garbko and Vsevolod Solntsev-Elbe into custody on suspicion of operating the "Blue Orchid" Web site, the U.S. Customs Service said.
Moscow and U.S. Customs officials have since arrested three more people in Russia and four others in the United States.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher cited additional arrests in Europe, but gave no details. He said U.S. authorities executed 15 search warrants in the United States.
He said the State Department had freed up $100,000 to help Moscow City Police beef up enforcement actions against child pornography on the Internet, including training at a U.S. Customs "cyber-smuggling" center.
Customs officials dismissed current tensions between Russia and the United States over diplomats accused of spying, saying the cooperative effort between the Moscow police and U.S. customs began early last year.
"The Russians came to us and then we worked together," the head of the U.S. Custom's Cybersmuggling Center, Kevin Delli-Colli, said at the news conference. "It's not enough to work in your own unique environment, and then pass on the information."
The initial Russian arrests led U.S. Customs officials to the Portage, Indiana, home of Glenn Martikean, who has been indicted on six federal counts of trading in pornography and traveling with the intent of having sex with minors.
Customs officials could not provide information about the other U.S. arrests, which occurred in Massachusetts and New York, or investigations in California and Utah, because charges have not yet been filed.
A "Growth Industry"
The "Blue Orchid" site operated from March to December last year and sold several hundred videos to at least 80 customers world-wide, Delli-Colli said.
The films, which sold for $200 to $300 per video, featured sexual abuse of young Russian boys. Just before the site was shut down, the group had begun making child porn films to order and charging $5,000 per video, Delli-Colli said.
Delli-Colli called child pornography on the Web the "biggest illicit business on the Internet."
"It's definitely a growth industry," he said.
