This case involves an international online child sexual exploitation ring, the Bored group, which met, organized its activities, and operated exclusively online. The Bored group earned this nickname because the chatrooms they created all included the word “bored” in them. Initially, the group met on Stickham, a social media platform which was popular for live streaming video chats. Frustrated with the moderation that existed on this site, they migrated to other sites and ultimately ended up using one unidentified site that was not moderated. The chatrooms they created on this site could not be found unless the person knew the URL of the chatroom.
The perpetrators devised and executed a plan to lure targets from moderated platforms to an unmoderated chatroom-based forum and entice them to engage in sex acts. Specifically, the members of the group worked together to recruit, entice, and coerce minors to engage in sex acts during video-chat sessions. To accomplish this, members of the group created fake profiles of teenage boys on social media and dating sites, such as MYLOL.com, Periscope, YouNow, and Gifyo, to target minor girls. The members would then identify minors to target, contact, and communicate with in order to get the victims to join the offenders in unmonitored chatrooms. All of the members of the group spent a considerable amount of time communicating with their targets in order to gain their trust, build rapport with them, and ultimately, entice the victims to commit sex acts. Beyond communication, Bored group members used several techniques to manipulate victims, including:
1. Dares. Daring minors to engage in sexualized behaviour and sex acts.
2. Polls. Running polls with participants in the chat rooms about the attractiveness of minors and/or voting on what type of items of clothing the minor should remove and/or what type of sex act the minor should engage in.
3. Competitions. Minors were pitted against each other in an effort to be rewarded (i.e., they would receive points for engaging in certain sexualized behaviour and sex acts, and advance levels based on points).
4. Purporting to Block Cameras. To reduce the inhibitions of minors, members who victims trusted (called “handlers”) would claim that they could block the camera and prevent others in the chatroom from viewing the victims. When the handler told other group members that this tactic was used, the participants in the chatroom would pretend that they were unable to see the victim’s web camera.
5. Loops. Pre-recorded videos of minors talking and/or engaging in sexualized behaviour or sex acts. These videos were played as if they were occurring in real-time in order to manipulate a minor into engaging in similar conduct and/or acts.
The Bored group had distinct roles for members: hunters, talkers, and loopers. Hunters lured victims to the chatroom. Talkers handled the next phase, which involved convincing the minors to undress and masturbate on camera by engaging them in conversation and building trust and rapport. Loopers posed as a female minor and played a pre-recorded video of a previous victim talking or engaging in sex acts (but passed it off as if it was playing in real-time). Loopers played these pre-recorded videos in an effort to convince girls to perform a sex act.
As a method to monitor, evaluate, and coordinate their activities, track progress, and share their knowledge and expertise, they would discuss their plans, activities, and experiences on a separate site (the now defunct Titan Pad) and record their activities and experiences on a password-protected spreadsheet on that site that included information about which chatrooms on the website were associated with which victims and the social media accounts associated with members that were used to lure each of the victims. The spreadsheet also enabled the members of the group to keep track of the manipulation techniques that were successful with each victim and what sex acts each victim engaged in (including extremely depraved acts; e.g., one member of the group enticed a minor to engage in a sex act with a dog). After Titan Pad ceased its operation in 2017, the Bored group moved its activities to Discord, a group chat platform, with voice and video capabilities.
The defendant, Caleb Young, pled guilty to child exploitation enterprise and received 30 years’ imprisonment for his crime. Other members of the group were also charged and sentenced for their crimes. C.M., the leader of the child exploitation enterprise, received 40 years’ imprisonment for his crime. He was killed in prison during an altercation with other inmates in January 2019. Other members of the group received 38 years’ (A.S.), 37 years and 6 months’ (O.O.), 35 years’ (J.N.R.), 31 years and 3 months’ (M.F.), and 30 years and 6 months’ imprisonment (B.J.S. and D.W., each) for their crimes. All of the members of the group were ordered to pay each identified victim restitution (i.e., USD 5,000 to each victim).
In his plea agreement, the defedant agreed to forfeit any child sexual abuse material as well as any property constituting or traceable to gross profits obtained as a result or involved in the commission of his crimes.
After a victim was interviewed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), special agents of the FBI reviewed logs from the website on which the victim had been lured. The logs showed the IP addresses used to log in the chatrooms as well as the date of the logins and the names of the chatrooms.
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan
The defendant entered into a plea agreement with the government.
18 U.S.C. § 2252A(g)
Child exploitation enterprise
18 U.S.C. §§ 2251(a), 2251(e)
Conspiracy to produce child pornography
18 U.S.C. § 2251(a)
Production of child pornography
18 U.S.C. § 2422(b)
Coercion and enticement of a minor
18 U.S.C. §§ 2252A(a)(2), 2252A(b)(1)
Conspiracy to receive child pornography
18 U.S.C. §§ 2252A(a)(5)(B), 2252A(b)(2)
Conspiracy to access with intent to view child pornography
The defendant was ordered to pay USD 5,000 in restitution to any identifiable victime. There is no information on the total amount.
He was further ordered to register as a sex offender and comply with registration requirements.
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan
United States of America v. Caleb Young, No. 2:18-CR-20128-SJM-DRG, Affidavit (E.D. Mich., 2017)
United States of America v. Caleb Young, No. 2:18-CR-20128-SJM-DRG, Sentencing Memorandum (E.D. Mich., 2018)
U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Michigan, “Eight Men Sentenced for Their Roles in an International Child Pornography Production Ring,” 6 December 2018.
This case identifies important information relating to the tactics, targets, tools, techniques, and method of operation of a child exploitation enterprise. The case involves a highly organized and well-defined organized criminal group, which exclusively operated online and engaged in various forms of child sexual exploitation and abuse. The group used multiple online platforms to identify targets and lure them to the chatrooms of other sites. These chatrooms could not be located unless the URL was known. The organized criminal group utilized grooming tactics to obtain and create child sexual abuse material.