The Ciaotou District Prosecutors’ Office recently shut down a Web site that sold sexually explicit images of minors, detaining three people, seizing cash and freezing account funds.
Last year, chief prosecutors Cheng Tzu-wei (鄭子薇) and Hsu Ya-wen (許亞文) discovered the site 5F Selfie (5F自拍) while investigating other cases of child pornography and voyeuristic videos, the office said in a news release today.
After the site continued to upload more illegal images and ignored several requests by the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Sexual Image Abuse Reporting Center to take down more than 300 items, chief prosecutor Chang Chun-hui (張春暉) ordered it be taken down, it said.
Photo courtesy of the Ciaotou District Prosecutors’ Office
On Tuesday last week, prosecutors ordered investigators to raid several locations, seizing evidence as well as NT$850,000 (US$28,427) in cash, 40,000 tether cryptocurrency USDT tokens and freezing NT$5.5 million in related company assets, it added.
After questioning suspects and witnesses, prosecutors requested the Ciaotou District Court to detain three men surnamed Lee (李), Wu (吳) and Lai (賴) without visitation rights, the office said.
Lee is listed as the company’s head, Wu is a manager and Lai is an advertiser, the statement said.
The court granted the request.
Prosecutors have also demanded the immediate shutdown of the Web sites involved and an expanded investigation into its activities, it said.
Chang also called for amendments to the Child and Youth Sexual Exploitation Prevention Act (兒少性剝削防制條例) to increase penalties for those who download, purchase, possess, view images or distribute of images of child sexual abuse.
Under current law, the penalty for distributing, buying or possessing such materials is one to seven years imprisonment.
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