Porn Business Funds Terrorism

Russia fights child porn and terrorism on the Internet

The chairman of the department for struggle with high-tech crimes of the Moscow Central Directorate for Internal Affairs, Lieutenant Colonel Dmitry Chepchugov, has recently released a statement about pornsites. Dmitry Chepchugov stated that the income from pornsites activities was used to fund extremist and terrorist organizations.

Lieutenant colonel mentioned at a briefing in Moscow that up to 75% of all juvenile pornography is distributed on the Internet. About 90% of Interpol’s international searching commitments concerning computer crimes are devoted to this issue. Chepchugov also said that the income of porn moneymakers makes up a considerable part of the shadow financial market. The income that is obtained from that business is used for funding both conventional criminal and terrorist activities. Each child porn website brings about $30 thousand of illegal income a month, according to RIA Novosti news agency.

The department for struggle with high-tech crimes has worked with three thousand sites of criminal interest since March  of the current year. Fourteen criminal proceedings have been instituted as a result.

In addition to that, Dmitry Chepchugov stated that all Vakhabism sites had been shut down in Russia. Canada-registered Kavkaz-Center, the site of Chechen gunmen, is one of them. The site was providing informational support to Chechen terrorists during the hostage crisis in Moscow. The site was shut down over an inquiry from the Russian Foreign Ministry.

As a matter of fact, as soon as there is a Chechen gunmen site found, the information about that is reported to the Foreign Ministry immediately. After that, the ministry sends notes to the state, on the territory of which a site was registered.

As far as porn business activity is concerned, PRAVDA.Ru has already published an article called “Internet Cash Cow: Slaughter Time.” The story referred to an article on WorldNetDaily site, which reported the latest initiatives of the Americans. Below is a small excerpt from the article.

Morality in Media Inc., as reported by the WorldNetDaily article quoted above, “has launched a new website http://ObscenityCrimes.org where Net users can file a report against possible obscenity-law violators… Visitors to MIM's new site can also find a mail-in form to report any possible off-line obscenity violators like “adult” book or video stores. Links are provided on the site to report child pornography to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and a petition is available to sign for those who want to express their support for obscenity law enforcement. ObscenityCrimes.org also explains why there is no First Amendment protection for obscene materials.”

“Every citizen concerned about the explosion of obscenity on the Internet,” ─ says the president of MIM Robert Peters, ─ “should bookmark ObscenityCrimes.org on his Web browser.” Then, at least, the administration would not be able to cite the lack of public concern about the issue. Our heartfelt desire is that the Russians follow this example of citizen’s action and prompt the Government to harsh measures against porn dealers and other figures of loathsome business.

Sergey Stefanov
PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov