Two brothers who allegedly operated a large online forum for sharing secretly recorded sex videos were indicted on charges related to child pornography and blackmail, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) told a news conference in Taipei on Thursday.
The Taichung District Prosecutors’ Office launched a probe after receiving information about a Telegram channel that allegedly distributed child pornography and then targeted its members for extortion, First Telecommunications Investigation Corps Commander Wu Suu-han (吳思翰) said.
Prosecutor Chen Hsiang-wei (陳祥薇) directed a team of investigators comprising bureau and Taichung Police Department personnel, Wu said.
Photo: CNA
Investigators identified a 31-year-old man surnamed Hsu (許) — who has a previous conviction for child exploitation — and his 29-year-old brother as the alleged administrators of a pornography forum called Chuangyi Sifang (創意私房), Wu said.
The forum has a subscription system in which members can download surreptitiously filmed sex videos bearing the site’s watermark, he said.
The brothers in May created a Telegram channel that provided free pornographic videos for download, including material from a commercial site, with some showing child sexual abuse, Wu said.
The channel’s followers would then be extorted via threats that their personal information would be released to the public, or that they were being sued for infringing copyrights for sharing the videos, he said.
Eleven men between 20 and 30 years of age were targeted in the blackmail scheme and collectively lost about NT$320,000 to the Hsu brothers, Wu said.
Law enforcement officials arrested the brothers and three alleged accomplices over the past three months and charged them with extortion, sexually exploiting minors and participating in organized crime, he said.
The elder Hsu was remanded in custody and the inquiry is being broadened to determine whether the group was involved in other crimes, Wu said.
Possession or distribution of child pornography contravenes the Child and Youth Sexual Exploitation Prevention Act (兒童及少年性剝削防制條例), which carries a minimum sentence of seven years in prison.
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