VIRGINIA
A federal judge sentenced a man from Bronx, New York to 18 years in prison for coercing and enticing minors as young as eight years old to engage in sexually explicit conduct on web cameras, according to officials.
U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis of Virginia also ordered Karlo Hitosis, 32, to serve 10 years of supervised release, officials said.
Last year, authorities said Hitosis plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to produce child pornography.
The investigation, tabbed “Operation Subterfuge,” identified more than 300 minor victims in the United States and an estimated 1,600 minor victims who were lured to the websites.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice, officials said.
Officials said Hitosis admitted in court that members of the conspiracy created false profiles on social networking sites, such as YouTube, posing as young teenagers to lure children to the websites they controlled.
Once on the conspirators’ websites, the conspirators showed the children pre-recorded videos of prior minor victims, often engaging in sexually explicit conduct, to make the new victims think that they were chatting with another minor.
Using these videos, the conspirators coerced and enticed children to engage in sexually explicit activity on their own web cameras, which the website automatically recorded.
Conspirators earned points based on their contribution to the success of website objectives, which allowed them access to the sexually exploitative videos of children.
Law enforcement agencies have disabled both websites.
FBI’s Violent Crimes Against Children Section special agents led the investigation with the assistance of the FBI’s Operation Rescue Me and the FBI’s Digital Analysis and Research Center.
The South Africa Police Service, Family Violence, Child Protection, and Sexual Offenses, Gauteng; Dutch Police Service Agency, KLPD; Royal Canadian Mounted Police, National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre; and the Australian Federal Police, Child Protection Operations, Sydney were active partners in the investigation, according to authorities.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office of New York also contributed to the investigation and the prosecution.