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| An picture released by Britain's National Crime Agency in London on Oct. 16, 2019, shows a screen shot of "Welcome to Video." U.K. and U.S. authorities said the site contained 250,000 videos downloaded a million times by users across the world. AFP |
By Jung Min-ho
A Seoul court will decide whether to extradite the operator of a notorious child porn website to the United States by the end of June.
The Seoul High Prosecutors' Office said Monday that it has arrested Son Jong-woo, 24, who was released that day after serving 18 months in prison for operating "Welcome to Video," which was called the world's "largest dark web child porn marketplace."
In three days, the prosecution will ask the Seoul High Court to review whether he should be extradited to the U.S, where a federal grand jury has indicted him on charges of advertising and distributing child porn among others. The court must then make a decision within two months.
The move follows a U.S. Department of Justice extradition request last year.
Between June 2015 and March 2018, Son operated the site on the dark web, a network that cannot be found via usual search engines and requires special browsers. In doing so, he made more than 400 million won ($330,000) through cryptocurrency trade.
An investigation found that the site contained more than 250,000 videos, including footage of extremely young children being raped.
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