Online child porn ring busted
Members of a Russian internet child porn ring run by a retired school teacher in Perm in the Urals have been sentenced to jail terms from six to 11 years.
The teacher and five others were found guilty of perversion involving children between eight and 10 years old, and distributing pornography online, says Kommersant here.
Police launched an inquiry in March 2001 after a Perm family reported their 10-year-old son had been kept in an apartment in the city for three days and forced to be photographed nude, says the report.
The ring “plied them [children] with drink” and paid them 50 to 100 roubles (around $1.94 to $3.88) for each ’session’ . The photos were sent to Moscow and posted on websites.
The retired teacher and six other men were arrested in 2002.
“The defendants, one of whom was acquitted on grounds of diminished responsibility and committed for psychiatric treatment, all pleaded not guilty and insisted there was no proof the children had been forced into the sex acts,” says the story.
Nine victims testified, but considerably more children were targeted by the porn ring during its two years of existence, said judge Oleg Veselov.
The teacher was jailed for 11 years “in a high-security penal colony,” and the other five men sentences from six to 10 years.
All six will appeal their convictions, adds Kommersant.
In 2002, US Customs agents and Moscow police dismantled ‘Blue Orchid’, a Moscow-based child pornography internet ring. At the time, police estimated then that pornographic photographs and videos worth $US17 million ($A22 million) were produced every month in Moscow alone, of which between 10 and 15 per cent was child pornography.
