US charges Belarusian firm with laundering child porn Internet money

BBC Monitoring International Reports

January 16, 2004

Minsk, 16 January: A company in Minsk, along with another in Florida, USA, has been charged with laundering profits from child pornography web sites.

Regpay Co. Ltd., a credit card processing company in Minsk, Belarus, collected fees for membership of child pornography web sites that brought in millions of dollars, the US Attorney's Office said Thursday, according to US news agencies.

Connections USA Inc., a Fort Lauderdale, Florida credit card billing service, is accused of receiving Regpay's membership fees and wiring the money to Latvia as directed by the company. Connections' CEO pleaded guilty on Wednesday to conspiracy to launder money for Regpay and its principals.

Four of Regpay's leaders were indicted, and three were arrested over the summer in Belarus, France and Spain, sources said. US authorities are seeking to have them transferred to that country for prosecution.

The 10-count indictment alleges that between about June 2002 and August 2003, Regpay, formerly known as Trustbill, provided billing services for more than 50 web sites that contained child pornography run out of Belarus and Latvia and operated at least four of its own sites, said US news agencies.

The Regpay investigation is said to be part of Operation Falcon, a programme aimed at severing financial support for child pornography.

For more information visit http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk

Source: Belapan news agency, Minsk, in English 1225 gmt 16 Jan 04 / BBC Monitoring

(c) British Broadcasting Corporation 2004. Distributed by FluentMedia, a service of Tribune Media Services. Copyright 2004 by Tribune Media Services