The National Strategy for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction

from Landslide’s business premises and servers, pursuant to federal search warrants, revealedmore than 100,000 paying customers from more than 60 countries. The principals of Landslidewere prosecuted and the investigation into the subscribers of the various web sites becameOperation Avalanche. 98The investigation into Landslide Productions began in the spring of 1999 after a Postal Inspector,acting in an undercover capacity, discovered Landslide’s web site and determined it was a hugecommercial child pornography enterprise being operated in Fort Worth, Texas. The Landslideweb site acted as a gateway to approximately 5,700 other web sites, many of which containedchild pornography images. Landslide’s servers revealed the names of approximately 100,000people from more than 60 countries who had purchased child pornography through the Landslideweb site. Law enforcement estimated that the site operators earned more than $1 million (USD)per month while the site was in operation.In 2001, Landslide’s owner and principal operator was tried, convicted, and sentenced to 180years in federal prison. Many of the 150 paid subscribers who were arrested and prosecuted aspart of Operation Avalanche were responsible for molesting children and trafficking in childpornography.Operation CybersafeOperation Cybersafe (initiated November 2003) was a historical investigation of a group ofsexual predators in the Peoria Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District ofIllinois. The investigation was initiated in November 2003 and concluded in 2004. The districttargeted a total of 17 defendants and identified more than 200 child victims of these predators;the victims ranged in age from younger than 10 to 16 years. Law enforcement forensicallyexamined more than 70 computers in a six-month period.Operation Cybersafe involved all types of online networking involving child exploitation and theproduction and dissemination of child pornography, including sexting, distribution, enticement,texting, e-mails, private chat room groups, in-person meetings, and sexual abuse. The groupmembers (defendants here) were not typically friends outside of their interests in and motivationsfor sex with minors. In fact, they were competitors with each other for the same children, butthey communicated with each other for the mutual benefit of increasing the number of childrenwho they could target, entice, and exploit. In essence, they grouped together for the sharing ofinformation about existing child victims, recruitment of new children into the group, andencouraging new children into experimenting with sex.One defendant described why these online predator groups are more dangerous than “for-profit”groups. The defendant stated to the (AUSA), “You don’t understand. You have your work, yourhobbies, and your family. My thoughts are occupied with kids and sex. When I’m at work I’m98 According to an October 13, 2009, e-mail from USPI Ray Smith, more than 6,000 search warrants were served inother countries. In the United States, more than 175 searches in 37 states were carried out, resulting in 150 arrests.Although, this was a USPIS- led operation, 30 ICACs from across the country joined forces with Postal Inspectorson many of the cases.A-2