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On October 16, 2019, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that 337 people had been arrested and charged worldwide in connection with Welcome To Video, a child sexual abuse material (CSAM) site. That was an announcement-era count of arrests and charges—not convictions. Authorities had seized the site’s server and arrested its alleged operator, Jong Woo Son, in South Korea on March 5, 2018.
DOJ described Welcome To Video as the largest child sexual exploitation market by volume of content. That is the government’s characterization in its 2019 announcement, not a current independent ranking. The case is separate from the FBI’s Playpen investigation, also known as Operation Pacifier.
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What was Welcome To Video?
Welcome To Video was a dark-web service that sold access to child sexual abuse material. DOJ said users paid with Bitcoin and that each new account received a unique Bitcoin address. The investigation combined financial tracing with analysis of the site’s seized server and cooperation among law-enforcement agencies in multiple countries.
DOJ’s October 16, 2019 announcement said the site itself had claimed more than one million downloads. Separately, investigators found more than one million Bitcoin addresses in the server analysis; DOJ said that indicated the site had capacity for at least one million users. Neither figure establishes how many people were verified active users. The announcement also described a civil forfeiture complaint alleging that accounts in five countries were used to fund and promote the site; those statements were allegations in that complaint.
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What happened, and when?
| Event | Date and reported details |
|---|---|
| Server seizure and Son’s arrest | March 5, 2018. DOJ said agents from IRS Criminal Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, the UK National Crime Agency and South Korea’s Korean National Police arrested Son and seized the server in South Korea. |
| U.S. indictment and announcement | October 16, 2019. DOJ announced that a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia had indicted Son on nine counts. DOJ said he had also been charged and convicted in South Korea and was serving his sentence there at that time. |
The indictment was unsealed alongside a civil forfeiture action. The charges against U.S. defendants described in the announcement were allegations at the time of publication. DOJ stated that defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Arrested, charged, pleaded guilty, convicted and sentenced describe different legal stages; the announcement’s worldwide figure should not be read as a count of convictions. DOJ’s October 16, 2019 announcement provides the case chronology and charges.
What does “337 users” mean?
DOJ reported that investigators sent leads to 38 countries and that those leads resulted in the arrests of 337 subjects worldwide as of the October 2019 announcement. The figure describes people authorities said had been arrested and charged in connection with the investigation—not 337 convictions, nor necessarily 337 people who had all reached the same stage of a criminal case.
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For the U.S. portion, DOJ said searches involved approximately 92 people. International reach and victim identification were also central to the announcement: DOJ reported that at least 23 minor victims in the United States, Spain and the United Kingdom had been rescued. These are figures reported in 2019; the announcement does not establish a later revised total or the subsequent legal disposition of every person charged.
How did investigators trace the site?
DOJ said the investigation used Bitcoin transaction tracing to help locate the server and identify the site administrator. IRS Criminal Investigation Chief Don Fort described that role in the announcement: “Through the sophisticated tracing of bitcoin transactions, IRS-CI special agents were able to determine the location of the Darknet server, identify the administrator of the website and ultimately track down the website server’s physical location in South Korea.”
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This is a description of investigative work in this case, not evidence that Bitcoin transactions are automatically identifiable. DOJ also said that agencies shared data from the seized server with international partners, generating leads in 38 countries. Its announcement reported approximately eight terabytes of material seized, including more than 250,000 unique videos. At the time, DOJ said 45 percent of the videos analyzed contained previously unknown images; the release noted that analysis was ongoing, so that percentage is a historical snapshot rather than a current reanalysis.
Why did DOJ call it the “largest” site?
The 2019 DOJ release characterized Welcome To Video as the largest child sexual exploitation market by volume of content. The scope matters: the claim was about content volume, and it was DOJ’s description at the time. The official sources cited here do not establish a present-day independent ranking.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Is Welcome To Video the same case as Playpen?
No. Welcome To Video and Playpen were separate dark-web investigations. Playpen was a Tor bulletin board and website investigated by the FBI under the name Operation Pacifier. DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General says the FBI seized Playpen’s server in February 2015, then operated the site under law-enforcement control for approximately two weeks while using a court-authorized network investigative technique to identify users. That operation involved its own investigative and legal questions; its dates and results do not belong to the Welcome To Video case.
The distinction matters when reading arrest and rescue statistics. The FBI reported that Operation Pacifier had generated 7,586 leads, 887 arrests and 351 child recoveries. As of May 4, 2017, the FBI separately reported at least 350 U.S.-based arrests and 548 international arrests for that operation. These figures concern Playpen/Operation Pacifier, not Welcome To Video, and should not be added to its 337 figure. The DOJ Inspector General noted that the FBI did not have a conviction count for Operation Pacifier. The Inspector General’s 2021 audit and the FBI’s 2017 account of the Playpen creator’s sentencing describe that separate case.
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