In short
FBI seized $51,533 in Bitcoin from Michael Pratt, arrested for intercourse trafficking associated to his GirlsDoPorn web site.
Pratt deceptively recruited girls for grownup movies, promising privateness however publishing content material on-line, producing $17 million in income.
After changing into an FBI Most Wished fugitive, Pratt was captured in Spain and positioned by means of the 2020 Ledger information breach.
The FBI has seized $51,533 in Bitcoin from a pockets belonging to Michael Pratt, a New Zealand pornographer who was arrested in 2022 on costs associated to intercourse trafficking.
U.S. authorities submitted a forfeiture order in opposition to Pratt and accomplices in July 2024, with the submitting together with a request to grab three Bitcoin wallets that contained a complete of 8.13 BTC.
This quantities to $840,000 at right now’s Bitcoin worth, and in keeping with a forfeiture discover posted by the FBI right now, the company has efficiently taken 0.61096499 BTC of the entire.
A New Zealand nationwide, Pratt had emigrated to the U.S. in 2009 and is reported to have operated the GirlsDoPorn web site between 2007 and 2019.
In October 2019, he was charged in absentia with intercourse trafficking crimes within the Southern District of California.
The FBI added Pratt to its Ten Most Wished listing in early 2022, and was providing $50,000 to anybody who might present data that might result in his arrest.
He was finally arrested by native authorities in Spain in December 2022. He was then charged with 19 crimes, together with intercourse trafficking, manufacturing of kid pornography and conspiracy to launder cash.
He was extradited to the US in March 2024. It was at the moment that public court docket filings revealed the total extent and nature of his alleged crimes.
He and his co-defendants are accused of utilizing deception and coercion to recruit lots of of younger girls, together with one minor, to carry out in GirlsDoPorn content material.
Recruited all through the U.S. and Canada, the victims replied to advertisements for modelling jobs for clothes, however had been later informed that the work concerned filmed grownup content material.
Pratt and his co-defendants provided the victims assurances that the movies can be made accessible solely by way of DVD to personal consumers in Australia, and that they would not be posted on-line.
The accused additionally informed the ladies that filming—which passed off largely in San Diego —can be transient. However victims mentioned shoots might take a number of hours, with a few of the girls being pressured to carry out acts for which that they had not consented.
And opposite to Pratt’s guarantees, he and his accomplices launched clips of movies to common grownup web sites, comparable to Pornhub, to be able to drive visitors in the direction of the full-length variations on GirlsDoPorn.
The web site is alleged to have earned over $17 million in income for Pratt by way of subscription charges, but it was shut down in January 2020 after being ordered by a San Diego choose to pay $12.8 million in damages to 22 girls.
Pratt’s associates, together with webmaster Matthew Isaac Wolfe and male performer Ruben Andre Garcia, have already pleaded responsible and been sentenced on costs associated to their respective roles within the conspiracy.
Pratt, nonetheless, has submitted a not responsible plea, and awaits the beginning of his trial in September.
In response to a Enterprise Insider article, Pratt was finally positioned because of the 2020 Ledger hack, which revealed the private particulars of over 200,000 of the French agency’s prospects.
This included Pratt, who had used his actual identify to have a Ledger pockets shipped to him at a resort in Barcelona.
Edited by Stacy Elliott.
Every day Debrief E-newsletter
Begin day by day with the highest information tales proper now, plus authentic options, a podcast, movies and extra.
