Tough time awaits child porn business

LONDON: It’s a multimillion industry; and the most ugly one too. It’s the most tech-savvy industry that uses all the possibilities of Internet – from marketing to money transaction.

And it is the most notorious industry catering to the perverts world over. That’s the business of child porn. However, the owners of child pornography websites may soon find it tough to transact money online, as child protection agencies have asked European banks crack down on the racket and expose child porn money trails.

This request comes following a legal breakthrough that has enabled international enforcement agencies to identify those who profit from child porn.

The breakthrough in cracking down the child pornography racket came when Allen & Overy, an international legal agency, took up the mission called helping 'Missing Children Europe' to track down those engaged in internet child pornography to get them prosecuted.

The agency used its expertise in banking, financial markets and e-commerce to help Missing Children Europe (MCE), a federation of European organizations, track and prevent payments made to child pornographers selling material through the internet.

Till Allen & Overy took up the issue impossible for investigators to follow money trails leading to the successful prosecution of the financiers of child porn because of data protection regulations, bank secrecy codes, criminal legislation and contract law across the European Union.

According to a report, a meeting of child protection agencies and lawyers to be held in Brussels next month will persuade the European Banking Federation and law enforcement agencies to form a financial coalition to combat this $2bn industry.

Reports say online child pornography is on the rise in the UK and it is a fast-growing and profitable business.

America had launched a mission in last December to catch people who sell child pornography online. Credit card companies and leading banks also had promised all support to the mission to prevent the online transaction of money for child porn.