Today, 17th November 2021, at a briefing at the National Investigation Service (NIS), the Director of the NIS Borislav Sarafov, investigator Svetoslav Vassilev from the NIS and the Head of the International Department at the Supreme Cassation Prosecutor’s Office Tsvetomir Yosifov gave details about an international operation between the US Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Investigation Service and the Supreme Prosecution Office, which unveiled a site with photos of children with pornographic content.
The investigation was launched 6 months ago on the request of the American side. Searches and seizures were carried out at several addresses in Sofia. Numerous electronic pieces of evidence were seized and analyzed in the United States.
During the operation, the 48-year-old Bulgarian citizen P.V. was arrested. He had been a site administrator, distributing photos of children between ages of 6 and 10. He had no forensic records. 4.6 million photos were uploaded on the site, and the investigation has established that the children originate mainly from Moldova and Ukraine.
Subscribers and users of the content of the site were citizens of 101 countries, including Bulgaria. Part of it was publicly available, and another part was paid a monthly subscription of $ 80. The revenues generated from the several years of activity of the site equals 9.5 million dollars, of which the site administrator – P.V. received 434,000 dollars.
Concerning the Bulgarian citizen, extradition proceedings are to be initiated at the request of the United States.
Deputy Prosecutor General Borislav Sarafov expressed his gratitude to the American colleagues for the joint work on the case with the National Investigation Service and the Supreme Cassation Prosecutor’s Office and highlighted the excellent operational co-operation between the law enforcement agencies of Bulgaria and the United States.