Police aim to take cash out of child porn

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 3 Mar 2009 at 12:38

A new EC-funded coalition has set itself the lofty goal of eradicating commercial child abuse websites.

The European Financial Coalition - a consortium of police, payment providers, IT companies and the European Commission - will work together to take the profit out of child porn.

Whilst wooly on the precise nature of their co-operation, the coalition members say they will work together to identify and locate both the victims and perpetrators of child abuse.

Jim Gamble, chief executive of the UK's Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre says the aim is to drive organised crime out of paedophilia.

"This coalition will allow us to better infiltrate paedophile networks," he told a press conference this morning. "Infiltrating peer-to-peer sites is a key objective of the the European Financial Coalition."

Gamble claimed that better police intelligence and co-operation from the credit card industry had helped close down many sites selling child abuse images. He claimed there are only 250 sites selling such material online at any one time.

"We will eradicate the profit that drives organised crime to this," he said. "It will take as long as is necessary. If we're down to two or three sites that won't be enough."

Gamble admitted that eradicating the element who aren't motivated by profit won't be as simple, but said they still relied on cash to pay for equipment and the maintenance of their sites.

"Organised crime is driven by a profit motive. Paedophiles have much more in common with terrorists," Gamble said. "They have a belief and they want to pursue that belief. Money is a secondary motivation, but they need money to maintain the infrastructure."

Gamble didn't reveal exactly how the police would co-operate with coalition members including Visa, PayPal and Microsoft, but made it clear that police will have access to financial records.

"We will look at your bank account," he warned abusers. "You produce a digital fingerprint."