U.S. officials announced on Tuesday the arrests of 14 men in a child-porn ring that victimized more than 250 children, many of them young boys, who were the subjects of a secret, members-only website.
The website had more than 27,000 subscribers, according to Reuters. Victims were mostly young boys between 13 and 15 years old. Victims were located in 39 U.S. states, as well as the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Belgium.
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Eleven of the charged men are from Louisiana, and the website's chief administrator, 27-year-old Jonathan Johnson of Abita Springs, La., faces a prison sentence of 20 years to life, Reuters reported.
Daniel Ragsdale, deputy director of the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in a news conference that the bust is one of historic proportions.
"Never before in the history of this agency have we identified and located this many minor victims in the course of a single child-exploitation investigation," Ragsdale said.
Victims ranged in age from three to 17 years old. Ringleaders sometimes used fake female profiles on "popular social networks" to make initial contact with victims, Reuters reported.
The members-only site was hidden using Tor encryption, authorities said, but a real-world mistake led to the case's big break. James Kilpatrick, a program manager for ICE's Cyber Crimes Center, said the child-porn ring was identified after someone sent a piece of physical mail to a child using the U.S. Postal Service.
Authorities said more than 300 investigations into website subscribers remain open, both in the U.S. and abroad.
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