A 54-year-old German programmer was arrested in Chon Buri for running a dark website that sold child pornography.
The arrest was a joint operation between the Technology Crime Suppression Division (TCSD) and US Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). The suspect identified only as Steffen was arrested at his condominium in Bang Lamung district on March 5.
HSI had tracked Steffen’s involvement in running a dark web site for selling child pornography. HSI believed that the suspect had operated the website for three years. The site featured various types of explicit content, with users paying in cryptocurrencies to access the material.
TCSD said he admitted to the charges, stating that after retiring from his programming job in Germany, he relocated to Thailand. He explained that he was the administrator of two dark web sites that offered over 5,000 child pornography videos. These websites had a combined total of more than 10,000 subscribers, generating an estimated 3.5 million baht in income.
