Bank, Credit Card Company Efforts to Combat Child Porn Examined | News | Congressman Ed Whitfield

News | Congressman Ed Whitfield | United States Representative

Bank, Credit Card Company Efforts to Combat Child Porn Examined September 21, 2006 WASHINGTON, September 21 - U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield, Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, on Thursday held a hearing examining the role banks, credit card companies and other businesses in the financial services industry can play in shutting down commercial child pornography sites on the Internet.

"Like most Americans, I was shocked to learn that commercial child pornography over the Internet is a multi-billion dollar industry. Because child pornography sites often use credit cards and other electronic tools to process payments from pedophiles, banks and credit card companies are uniquely positioned to cut off the flow of money off to these sites and shut this illicit trade down," said Whitfield.

On Thursday, Kentucky native Ernie Allen, President and CEO of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, told the Subcommittee about the Financial Coalition his organization had set up to identify banks that process payments for commercial child pornography businesses and to transmit that information to law enforcement agencies. Allen said that 23 major financial companies had joined the coalition, including Visa, MasterCard and American Express.

"We will aggressively seek to identify child pornography sites with method of payment information attached. Then we will work with the credit card industry to identify the merchant bank. Then we will stop the flow of funds to these sites. In each case we will work hand-in-hand with federal, state, local or international law enforcement, and the first priority will be criminal prosecution," said Allen.

Also on Thursday, Christopher Christie, the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, discussed the success his office achieved in using financial transactions and records in prosecuting an international child pornography ring. By tracking various credit card transactions between operators in Florida and the former Soviet republic of Belarus, Christies office was able to shut down a child pornography company that operated over 50 pornographic websites with monthly revenues in excess of $2,000,000.

Christie's investigation ultimately led to the arrest of over 300 people in the U.S. that purchased child pornography from the website and over 1,400 arrests worldwide. Two defendants from Belarus were extradited to the U.S. and are currently serving 25 year sentences in federal prison. "Our approach was to follow the money, said Christie. We would not have been successful without the cooperation of the major credit card companies."

"I applaud the industry for all of the proactive measures they are taking to eradicate commercial child pornography sites from the Internet and I urge them to continue to do more. Only with the continued collaboration among industry, law enforcement and the Congress will these commercial sites be deleted from the Internet once and for all," added Whitfield.

Thursday's hearing was the sixth in a series Whitfield has chaired on Internet sex predators. Whitfields investigation will continue next week with a hearing examining loopholes in the U.S. adoption system that allows pedophiles to adopt children, as well as a hearing on the psychological profiles of child sex predators, describing who these people are, how they think, and how they can be treated.

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