The criminal group, composed by members from Mexico, Brazil and Costa Rica, operated since 2009. Under a structured of division of roles, the group was dedicated to producing, disseminating and commercializing child pornographic material, which was posted on different websites.
In Costa Rica, they operated mainly in San José, Desamparados and Heredia areas. The recruitment of victims, mostly minors, took place through a modeling agency, promoting castings through social networks. Several photographers conducted auditions with minors, where they produced material of sexual abuse of girls to be distributed on websites and on the Dark Web.
The members of the criminal organization created various re-direct pages to ensure that the web pages of the pornographic sites were restricted in the public IP addresses assigned to Costa Rica so they could be accessed only from abroad. In this way they tried to control their visibility and cover the traces of the crime. Membership rights to access the content were paid through a separate website (www.support-gurus.com) via online transactions processed in an encrypted security system, called "SeguritySocket Layer". The membership cost was $ 30 a month for accessing material that included photographs and erotic videos of minors.
México
BrasilCosta Rica
Alemania
Francia
Estados Unidos de AméricaMéxicoBrasil
Observaciones
Investigative techniques
The investigation was carried out by the Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling Unit of the Judicial Investigation Agency (O.I.J.). During the Investigation of Internet domains, 41 Web sites where the material of sexual abuse of girls from Costa Rica, Mexico and Brazil was commercialized, were identified. Some of the websites were registered by individuals from those 3 countries, which allowed each of the members of the transnational criminal organization to be identified.
For the first time in Costa Rica, raids were carried out on websites by means of a court order (resolution of a Judge of the Republic). The websites were accessed using TOR, due to geo-blocking. Through the figure of "undercover agent", a fictitious email account was created to access these pages. A large amount of material of sexual abuse of the victims was downloaded as evidence for the case.