Expert Analysis of
Open Source Material relating to Child Sexual Abuse Material and Sex Trafficking occurring on OnlyFans.com

April 3, 2022 | Child Sexual Abuse Materials, Human Trafficking, Law Enforcement

Compiled by Anti-Human Trafficking Intelligence Initiative in Consultation with Veteran Law Enforcement Officials
April 2022

Issue Overview

OnlyFans.com, owned by Fenix International with a presence in the U.S., is primarily an adult content, subscription-based social media platform, hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS), where sex crimes are actively taking place, including crimes involving the sexual exploitation of minors and adults. Payments for OnlyFans.com content are transacted and cleared through major credit card networks, including Visa and Mastercard, among other payment processors, and large U.S. banks.

In addition to news articles and local police reports indicating OnlyFans.com being used as a hub by criminals for such sexually illicit activity, experts cite key words and visual indicators associated with these criminal activities as pervasive on the OnlyFans.com platform, signifying the problem is widespread. In the study that follows, our data and methodologies were reviewed by veteran law enforcement personnel and its findings are consistent with trends seen in sex trafficking cases. This presentation will discuss the study, its methodology, why law enforcement investigations of criminal activity on OnlyFans.com are so challenging, and highlight specific cases of suspected child sex trafficking and other criminal activity occurring on the platform. The analysis is designed to provide an assessment of the likely prevalence of criminal sexual activity taking place on the OnlyFans.com platform and is not to be construed as an indictment of legally produced and distributed pornography on the platform.

OnlyFans.com facilitates crimes by providing sex predators and traffickers with the technological means to identify and recruit victims and exploit them. As described in more detail below, the subscription-based (paywall protected) model of OnlyFans.com affords sex predators and traffickers with the means to profit from their crimes while remaining less visible to law enforcement. This makes investigations of suspected cases of trafficking time consuming and costly for law enforcement and antitrafficking organizations. Further, the paywall aspect of OnlyFans.com diminishes the effectiveness of traditional law enforcement “scraping” tools used for child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and sex trafficking investigations. Key players in the U.S. financial sector continue to enable this commerce by failing to adequately comply with their existing regulatory requirements mandated through the “Anti-Money Laundering Program Requirement” of the USA PATRIOT Act: 31 USC §5318(h)(1), 31 CFR §1028.210, and 31 CFR §1020.210.

OnlyFans.com Paywall Inhibits Law Enforcement Investigations

OnlyFans.com’s structure has made it exceedingly difficult for law enforcement to pursue cases leading to arrests on any significant scale without specialized investigator training designed to address the complexity of such cases involving content hidden behind a paywall. The site has transformed the pornography industry by instituting a subscription-based business model, which requires users to subscribe to individual creator accounts where most content is concealed behind a paywall. While it is relatively easy to identify significant “red flags” indicating the likelihood of criminal activity occurring on OnlyFans.com through open source investigations, the paywall enables traffickers, rapists, and other criminal elements to better evade detection. To investigate and pursue these criminals at scale is extremely cumbersome for law enforcement, both in terms of direct financial commitment incurred by the paywall as well as the additional time required to investigate each paywall-enabled case of suspected criminal activity.

Technological tools developed for law enforcement to “scrape” websites for CSAM and sex trafficking are not able to get behind the OnlyFans.com paywall and scrape data. Due to the paywall aspect of OnlyFans.com, law enforcement would have to seek and receive approvals for funding to subscribe and engage with each suspected account on a platform with upwards of 2 million creators and 250 million subscribers.

This analysis and its conclusions were bolstered by a similar, but separate analysis of OnlyFans.com conducted by veteran law enforcement researchers at the University of New Haven (UNH) and the anti-human trafficking non-profit, Awareness is Prevention (AIP). Researchers from AIP expended several thousand dollars in just two hours to access paywall-concealed content essential to the UNH analysis. Their findings are consistent with the Anti-Human Trafficking Intelligence Initiative (ATII) analysis which suggests that CSAM and sex trafficking indicators are common across the OnlyFans.com platform.

Local, State and Federal jurisdictions do not have the manpower and/or resources to support such investigations and, as a result, crimes on OnlyFans.com continue unabated. Further, companies such as AWS, Mastercard, and Visa frequently rely on information from law enforcement and/or entities that refer information to law enforcement, such as the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), to determine if red flags are present with a merchant. Unfortunately, investigative gaps and limitations posed by the paywall on OnlyFans.com stymies these efforts. For example, NCMEC does not pay to access content behind the paywall on OnlyFans.com or on any other commercial site and therefore only relies on content that is publicly accessible. Further, NCMEC does not proactively conduct general reviews of content available on OnlyFans.com, instead focusing its efforts on instances when there is a connection between the site and a missing child reported to NCMEC or information contained within a CyberTipline report relating to child sexual exploitation on OnlyFans.com.1 Rather than solely relying on law enforcement and NCMEC referrals, it is important for these companies to consider the findings of this study as a basis in making determinations of criminal activity on the OnlyFans.com platform in which their products and/or services support. 2 Again, this analysis was supported by data procured through open source methods which is accessible to any interested party including the Trust and Safety teams at companies doing business with OnlyFans.com.

1 For further information please contact Staca Shehan, Vice President for Analytical Services Division, National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at sshehan@ncmec.org
2 This is a common regulatory expectation for a regulated financial institution.

Confirming Criminal Sexual Activities on OnlyFans.com

As anyone who actively combats human trafficking will tell you, sex and other forms of trafficking is sometimes a complex crime to investigate, even when unencumbered by a paywall. To determine if, and how extensive, criminal activity pervades the OnlyFans.com platform, ATII teamed up with veteran law enforcement officials to investigate the platform using open source and other techniques validated by veteran law enforcement officials. We describe their approach and methodologies below.

ATII is comprised of experts in the law enforcement, military intelligence and financial and data forensics space and supports law enforcement in efforts to disrupt the economic flow of human trafficking. Their work has contributed to the arrests of dozens of sex traffickers and CSAM distributors. For this study, ATII collaborated with former law enforcement officials at the University of New Haven’s Center for Forensic Investigations of Trafficking in Persons. Their analysis confirms the presence of “red flags” highly indicative of sex crimes (including CSAM and sex trafficking) routinely occurring on OnlyFans.com. Law enforcement personnel shared their view with our researchers that based on their experience and training, the methodology and analysis was sound. Additionally, this report was given to the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Child Exploitation Investigations Unit prior to its publication to ensure the findings were consistent with HSI investigations on the platform, and HSI did not recommend any edits or changes.

ATII performed this work as a public service and was not compensated for this purpose. Equally important is that this analysis is designed to only provide an assessment of the likely prevalence of criminal sexual activity taking place on the OnlyFans.com platform; it is not to be construed as an indictment of legally produced and distributed pornography on the platform.

Methodologies

Open source material compiled by HSI agents investigating human trafficking and child exploitation on OnlyFans.com was provided to ATII for the purpose of conducting this analytical research. A substantial portion of the material used in this research was generated by simple methodologies including common search engines (e.g. Google) and routine search techniques used in open source investigations. Specifics are as follows:

For this portion of the analysis, no propriety or specialized investigative tools were used, nor were any advanced investigative techniques adopted. Within 1.5 hours, two ATII researchers found a high volume of OnlyFans.com profiles possessing commonly understood indicators of CSAM and/or sex trafficking. Given the tremendous amount of troubling material found using these simple methodologies, it appears there are not effective measures in place to verify age and/or consent by OnlyFans.com or the Trust & Safety teams obligated to do so at companies doing business with the platform.

Other than open source methodologies, a very small portion of the study enlisted specialized subscription darknet tools and investigative techniques consistent with those used by law enforcement. These efforts identified troubling connections between OnlyFans.com profiles and the darkweb utilized by sex predators. For example, when searching keywords of “OnlyFans” AND “pedo” (aka pedophiles) 54,443 darknet results were revealed. During this search, references were found to children being sold for in person physical contact sexual encounters. To be clear, this darknet tool was only used on the “OnlyFans” AND “pedo” search and in supplementary findings depicted in Exhibit G. This report and its findings are entirely reliant on open source information except for the supplementary examples discussed here. We opted to include this supplementary information related to the darknet to demonstrate the prevalence of links to CSAM and sex trafficking on the OnlyFans.com platform as sourced through the darknet.

It is important to note that sex trafficking is sometimes a complex crime with no obvious
“smoking gun” indicating a crime is being committed. Law enforcement personnel assess each potential case and weigh multiple “indicators” when deciding if a case warrants further investigation, but ultimately, pursuing an investigation is subjective. Certainly, any one or even two indicators present can sometimes be explained by or attributed to other factors that are not criminal. However, when there are multiple indicators present it becomes more and more plausible (or even likely) that a person is being trafficked against their will.

To determine the extent of possible criminal activity on OnlyFans.com, ATII investigators conducted a series of Google searches of websites known to law enforcement to feature substantial amounts of sex trafficking content and their linkages to the OnlyFans.com platform, with the following results. The findings further highlight the linkages of key words and terms known to law enforcement to be associated with CSAM and sex trafficking to the platform. These findings show OnlyFans.com as not just a passive hub for sexually explicit images and videos, but is actively utilized by sex traffickers and other criminals to monetize large scale, in-person criminal sexual encounters.

The terms ‘lolita’ and ‘loli’ have been well known mainstream terms to describe sexual relations between adult men and underage girls. The terms originate from the 1955 Novel by Vladimir Nabokov describing the romance between a father and his preteen daughter and was followed up by a 1997 film starring Jeremy Irons and Dominique Swain. It has since become further popularized through a Japanese form of cartoon child pornography and has become a globally recognized term for sexualized female children.

Glossary of Indicators of CSAM and/or Sex Trafficking

The following checklist below represents a simple list of common indicators depicted in images of victims and in descriptions in sex ads for their services:
Checklist:

Analysis of Possible Sex Crimes on the OnlyFans.com Platform

After processing the data discussed above, ATII and veteran law enforcement are highly confident that CSAM and sex trafficking are likely present on the OnlyFans.com platform. Thorough analysis of the data leads to the conclusion that the content discovered is consistent with CSAM and sex trafficking activity.

For example, Exhibits A-D depict potential victims of sex trafficking, including examples of potential minors and an adult woman, all with red flag indicators indictive of sex trafficking.

Exhibit E depicts two possible sex traffickers discussing their preference to use OnlyFans.com as a basis to monetize potential victims. This exhibit is classified as moderate because further investigation is needed to determine if the pimps depicted in the video are known traffickers and/or if the girls they are discussing are consenting adults.

In contrast to these examples, Exhibit F depicts an OnlyFans.com creator who appears to be participating on the platform under her own complete control and would not warrant further investigation.

Lastly, Exhibits G-H depict potential sex traffickers who are known producers of pornography in which the exhibits show multiple red flag indicators of victims being abused by them.

In addition to CSAM and sex trafficking, much of the content discovered appears consistent with law enforcement’s observations relating to violent sex acts including images and videos that at minimum may depict forced rape and criminal assault. For example, pictures and videos procured for this analysis depict apparent victims in visible pain or duress, blank expression, appearance of being under the influence, bruising and degrading handwritten markings or derogatory language on their bodies, and/or on signs being held.

Again, content for this analysis has been sourced directly from OnlyFans.com and a variety of open sources (e.g. Google, social media, porn sites, darknet, etc.) that clearly originate from and link to the OnlyFans.com platform.

Please see the above forementioned glossary of key works and criminal indicators within this study for more detailed descriptions. The key words and indicators for CSAM and sex trafficking have been validated by veteran law enforcement for the purposes of this study. Further, veteran law enforcement officials indicate the findings of this study are consistent with trends seen in sex trafficking cases.
The following section contains exhibits that represent a select sample of our findings. Within, the team clearly articulates and identified indicators of likely criminal sexual activity and their prevalence within each example provided. Each indicator is universally known to be related to said activity and have been vetted by veteran law enforcement professionals. As indicators add up the probability of criminality increases.

Investigators and veteran law enforcement professionals conclude that it is highly likely OnlyFans.com is facilitating sexual crimes against innocent women, children, and teens, which crimes are being accessed through U.S. financial institutions.

EXHIBITS
The following exhibits depict potential victims of sex trafficking, including examples of children and adults. To protect potential victims, we purposefully do not include any imagery or identifying information in these exhibits. Additional examples and a more in-depth breakdown can be made available upon request.

HIGH INDICATOR OF POTENTIAL CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING VICTIM
Exhibit A: High Indicator of Child Sex Trafficking Victim: This account was found under a search for OnlyFans.com using CSAM keywords. The volume and severity of indicators found
in this exhibit elicited an immediate response, whereby it was reported to NCMEC and HSI.

The OnlyFans.com username for this account is blatantly in of itself a red flag indicator (suggests a very young female with small and slight stature).
The OnlyFans.com profile image is of a young female in a bikini top who appears to lack certain physical characteristics consistent with a female of legal and consenting age and has attributes consistent with a child or minor e.g. quite small in stature, narrow shoulder width, tiny wrists, and narrow waist.
The physical factors above suggest the strong potential that the subject is a child or minor.
Although the subscription content is behind the paywall the descriptions of each are viewable publicly and rather telling. For example, one post describes how she felt she was nearly abducted by a man in a park and wish that she had been.
The direct URL for this OnlyFans account is posted in the bio of both corresponding Reddit and Twitter accounts often used to drive traffic to the OnlyFans account. Moreover, the OnlyFans profile picture are also posted in the Reddit and Twitter accounts (both accounts have the same username but with a number added). All three platforms contain multiple posts pertaining to DDLG style relationships, rape, sexual violence, and more.
Both the Twitter and Reddit accounts advertising the OnlyFans account, have several provocative pictures of the same girl (verified by freckles, markings, nail polish etc.), with 2 being topless (one censured with an emoji over the nipples, the other uncensored).
All three accounts share themes and patterns that include the user wanting to be molested, promising to try to cry less, wanting to be like mommy, wanting more kisses from daddy and keeping it a secret from mommy, and wanting to be hurt as she would look cute with bruises, incest, and hashtags that include #extremekink, #teenagegirl, and #ageplayrp
(rape fetish of teens and children by older men) etc.
The Reddit account has posts in which the subject claims to have been raped and molested in the past.
The Twitter account advertising the OnlyFans profile has in the heading terminology and syntax frequently encountered in CSAM forums. For example, the words perv and rape are commonly used predatory terms. The use of these words coupled with coding methods e.g. replacing “e” with “3” (perv = p3rv) and “a” with “@” (rape = r@pe), in an effort by predators to avoid detection.

HIGH INDICATOR OF POTENTIAL CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING VICTIM

Exhibit B: High Indicator of Child Sex Trafficking Victim: This account was found under a search for OnlyFans.com and “DDLG” (Daddy Dom Little Girl).

DDLG is a well-known CSAM keyword and category.
The account name is a sub-category of the DDLG CSAM genre.
The profile image is of a childish looking cartoon scene with anime style teddy bears, rainbows, and cupcakes etc.
The tagline is “Little Bear and Daddy Bear” (“little is common in CSAM for child, Daddy is associated with an older sexual partner”).
One line within the profile states “My adorable little baby girl and I are in a DDLG relationship. We love taking and sharing pictures and videos”.
They offer content that ranges from; “innocent pictures of daily life, to hypnosis videos, “knife play,” and hard core sex videos.

These indicators would suggest CSAM is possible. Further, “hypnosis videos” could be referring to the same genre as drugged or passed out, and “knife play” could suggest an extreme form of CSAM that contains torture and other abuse of minors.
NOTE: This profile was linked to another DDLG related one on OnlyFans.com, in which the profile picture is of what appears to be a very young girl in “juvenile” looking pajama style outfit holding a teddy bear between her legs.

HIGH INDICATOR OF POTENTIAL CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING VICTIM

Exhibit C: High Indicator of Child Sex Trafficking Victim: was found with a Google search for OnlyFans with the same DDLG keyword.

Her profile and posts contain a number of CSAM keywords, terms, and hashtags.
Her profile page openly and blatantly advertised contact sexual services with very specific services and offerings.
She has profiles on escort sites and offers to travel.
She is available 24/7.
The production quality of her images and videos is very poor with dim lighting, messy cheap looking hotel rooms, many locations (e.g. different hotel rooms), bruising and other signs of potential abuse, tattoos consistent with known sex trafficking ones. Additionally, her appearance changes drastically in just a 10-month span (she ages quickly and noticeably), and has little regard for her appearance as she poses in an unflattering way. This is very different from independent escorts, who typically like to maintain their appearance.

HIGH INDICATOR OF POTENTIAL SEX TRAFFICKING VICTIM

Exhibit D: High Indicator of Sex Trafficking Victim: is an OnlyFans creator who is also an escort in Wisconsin. Her OnlyFans.com biography is an escort ad description of all the services she offers (including contact sexual services) and locations.

She openly advertises contact sexual services on her OnlyFans page. These include:
“outcalls”, “the $80 blow job” and a special for anyone who makes her “kitten purr”. She operates in a circuit in the cities Appleton, Milwaukee, and Green Bay, and offers to travel to additional locations so appears she operates in a large geographical circumference.
She is available for “car dates.”
She is available 24/7.
She is not a minor; however, the balance of the indicators (as evaluated by ATII experts) listed suggest that she is being coerced, and not operating as an independent sex worker.

MODERATE INDICATOR OF POTENTIAL SEX TRAFFICKING VICTIMS

Exhibit E depicts two possible sex traffickers discussing their preference to use OnlyFans.com as a basis to monetize potential victims. This exhibit is classified as moderate because further investigation is needed to determine if the pimps depicted in the video are known traffickers and/or if the girls they are discussing are consenting adults.

EXHIBIT E: Moderate Indicator of Potential Sex Trafficking: This account was found through a video posted on Twitter and contains a discussion by possible sex traffickers and their use of the OnlyFans.com platform to “manage” potential victims. The link to the video is as follows: https://twitter.com/ChakraDestroyer/status/1493731984467763202

There are sufficient indicators present in this video to warrant an investigation to determine if sex trafficking is occurring, including the following:

The two possible sex traffickers in the video openly discuss how they
use OnlyFans.com for the purposes of prostituting women.
They mention “hitting the blade” which is an expression to describe a place or places where sex workers do business (e.g. brothels).
They describe how with the pandemic they adjusted their “business model” by expanding to OnlyFans.com.
They describe how they “cut loose some of their girls” and migrated others to the OnlyFans.com platform.
One of the pimps describes how one of his girls agreed with the decision to
utilize OnlyFans.com and how she “thinks I love her” (a common and strong indicator of a “Romeo” pimp scenario).

This example is classified as a “Moderate Indicator of Potential Sex Trafficking” because an additional investigation must be conducted to determine if the girls are consenting adults or whether they are in a coercive (trafficked) relationship. The investigation would include an examination of which girls, if any, are potential victims, whether the potential sex traffickers’ online connections (escort ad sites, social media, etc.) are linked to additional indicators of sex trafficking or other criminal activity etc.

In contrast to the examples provided above, the following exhibit depicts an OnlyFans.com creator who appears to be participating on the platform under her own complete control:

LOW INDICATOR OF TRAFFICKING VICTIM

Exhibit F: Low Indicator of Trafficking Victim: was found through an Instagram profile that had an OnlyFans.com link in the bio:

She exhibits few if any indicators of trafficking or coercion.
She has a well-kept appearance with professional makeup and nails and hair styling.
Her clothing (lingerie and regular) appears new and to be higher end (look and labels).
She appears healthy, does not appear malnourished or under the influence of drugs at any point.
It seems she has control over what she states she will do, with whom, when, and her life in general (social media posts reveal as such).
Her pornography videos are produced with professional lighting and cameras.
She does not advertise contact sexual services.
The locations are neat and clean, appearing to be in nice homes or medium to upper scale hotel rooms.
There is no reason to believe that trafficking or anything criminal is occurring on her profiles and appears to be engaging in the sex industry on her own free will.

In previous exhibits, we have focused on victim accounts, an account featuring a victim but likely controlled by her traffickers/abusers and a video depicting possible sex traffickers discussing the use of OnlyFans.com to monetize potential victims. We have contrasted these accounts with a legal creator account. We will now turn to subscriber accounts maintained by suspected traffickers on OnlyFans.com.

HIGH INDICATOR OF POTENTIAL SEX TRAFFICKER

Exhibit G: High Indicator of Potential Sex Trafficker: man known as a suspected sex trafficker with an active profile on OnlyFans.com. This individual holds accounts on several pornography websites and claims to be a producer on some of them.

A Google image search for his username revealed a number of thumbnails of his productions with young and potentially underage girls, some of which have tattoos that are associated with sex trafficking (e.g. roses). Further, some show women who appear to be in pain and distress. In one case there are three thumbnails with very young looking and petite girls with the caption “THOT parade of horny teens”. THOT (That Ho Over There” has a few definitions but it is universally known as a derogatory term for young girls).
The image production quality is very low with dim lighting, grainy video and imagery, shadows, and messy unkept locations, many of which appear to be discount hotel rooms.
There are 48 darkweb search results for “Onlyfans.com” AND the commonly known CSAM term “DDLG”, many of which KingCureTV’s (aka suspected trafficker) OnlyFans.com direct profile link appears. Although it appears as onlyfans.com/kingsplayhouse on the darknet search this diverts to onlyfans.com/kingcuretv when entered directly into a browser (it is the same account). A follow up search of “onlyfans.com” AND “kingsplayhouse” yields 83 darknet results. There are several pornographic genres and titles in the results, including themes consistent with forced sex and minors. Examples include but are not limited to: DDLG, Daddy Love, American Teen, Small Anal Teenie Girl, and “Baby Girl Rides Her Stuffed Bear and Cums for Daddy”, and Leaked Cam Girls. A comment on one of his videos reads “Seeing the video on the left you wonder why he beat her and didn’t just f* her. Looking at the right video you see what he usually f**. And you get why did didn’t value that THOT.” All results are for pornography, and many have keywords and themes that are consistent with, and indicate, the potential for CSAM.

HIGH INDICATOR OF POTENTIAL SEX TRAFFICKER

Exhibit H: High Indicator of Potential Sex Trafficker: Potential Trafficker was discovered with a Google search for site: onlyfans.com “outcall” in which his profile surfaced. This individual is a potential trafficker based on key indicators.

A Google search for his name revealed thousands of results that include several related to pornography featuring red flag indicators including the following: production quality is very poor with dim lighting, pixilated images, choppy and blurry video, and most taking place in messy rooms, including discount hotels.
A number of the young girls in his Google image search appear to be very young and possibly underage. Some appear to be under the influence, and many appear as though coercion was used and that they did not have control over the situations that they were in.
His social media contains posts of him dressed as and referring to himself as a pimp. This could be explained in other ways; however, given the full weight of the context (as determined by ATII experts) it is compelling and worthy of further investigation. However, to do so thoroughly would require substantial sums of money and strain law enforcement budgets.

Confirmed Arrests Involving OnlyFans.com

As mentioned above, “smoking guns,” in which predators or traffickers blatantly and overtly broadcast that a victim is underage, or a girl is in a forced situation, is rare. The criminals that do so are usually arrested and reported in the media.
The following are examples of arrests that have been made:
January 29, 2021. CBS4 Miami: “Hialeah Couple Hit with Human Trafficking Charges.”

Two adults in Miami, Florida, arrested and charged with human trafficking, possession of a sexual performance by a child, and promoting the sexual performance by a child after allegedly selling explicit videos of a 16-year old girl on OnlyFans.com.

June 5, 2021. FOX13 Tampa Bay: “Clearwater man kidnaps, beats woman, threatens more violence unless she opens OnlyFans account, police say.”

Adult in Tampa, Florida, arrested and charged with extortion, felony battery, and false imprisonment after allegedly kidnapping a woman and threatening to beat her if she did not create an OnlyFans.com account and upload videos of her having sex with the kidnapper and another woman.

June 18, 2021. Boston Herald: “Brockton coach accused of posting child rape on OnlyFans ordered to stay out of Boston.”

Adult in Boston, Massachusetts, arrested and charged with aggravated rape of a child, trafficking of a person for the purposes of sexual servitude, extortion, and possession and distribution of CSAM after allegedly selling videos on OnlyFans.com of him sexually assaulting an underage girl.

August 13, 2021. Miami Dade County State Attorney’s Office: “For Immediate Release: Man Charged with Trafficking 15-Year-Old.”

Adult in Miami, Florida, arrested and charged with human trafficking of a minor, sexual performance by a child, aggravated child abuse, and sexual battery after allegedly branding an underage female with a tattoo and selling videos of him having sex with the minor on OnlyFans.com

September 13, 2021. Lake & McHenry County Scanner: “Woodstock man arrested for selling woman’s sexually explicit images, posting them on Twitter and OnlyFans.”

Adult in McHenry County, Illinois, arrested and charged with felony non-consensual dissemination of private sexual images after allegedly selling explicit photos on OnlyFans of a woman without her consent.

November 21, 2021. Fort Worth Star Telegram: “Couple shares woman’s nude photos with junior high boys on Snapchat, Texas cops say.”

Adults in Henderson County, Texas, arrested and charged with leaking OnlyFans.com content to 30 minors. The following is a link to the official court documents made by the Henderson County District Attorney

BBC Investigation of OnlyFans.com

The link below contains an investigative report by the BBC indicating OnlyFans.com content moderators are encouraged by the company to take no immediate action to address high performing/lucrative accounts when suspected criminal activity is found.

Noel Titheradge. BBC News. August 19, 2021. “OnlyFans: How it handles illegal sex videos – BBC investigation.”

The following provides excerpts from the article outlining inadequate moderation, potential sex crimes, ease in which those under 18 can create an account, and statements by Federal and local law enforcement discussing sex trafficking and/or CSAM found on the OnlyFans.com platform:

“In May [2021], BBC News revealed the site was failing to prevent under-18s from selling and appearing in explicit videos, despite it being illegal for children to do so. At the time, OnlyFans said attempts to use the site fraudulently were ‘rare’. Now, the leaked documents show accounts are not automatically shut down if they break the site’s terms of service. Moderators have also told BBC news they have found prostitution services advertised, bestiality and material one moderator believed to be incest.”
“Christof [an OnlyFans moderator] says he has frequently come across content where he fears people may be being exploited. He says while the documents set out instructions for dealing with banned content, they contain no requirements for moderators to raise concerns around exploitation.”
“A different [OnlyFans] account bears hallmarks of trafficking and exploitation, according to a lawyer who directed BBC News to it. A woman, whose face is never shown, appears in some videos with the walls and floor completely covered with rugs -and there are repeated references to travelling across Europe.”
“The document [internal OnlyFans.com guidance to its moderators] also gives moderators specific instructions for dealing with accounts – depending on how popular each one is. It says accounts with higher numbers of subscribers can be given additional warnings when rules are broken.”
“BBC News was able to set up two subscriber accounts in French and German – despite explicitly stating they were young teenagers in the bios and advertising the sale of photographs. The accounts remained active for a week until BBC News contacted OnlyFans.”
“Detective Joseph Scaramucci, who works in Texas in the US, says he has recently worked on specific cases targeting human trafficking where there were obvious signs of women under another person’s control appearing in OnlyFans videos.”
“Special agent Austin Berrier, from US Homeland Security, specializes in investigating child exploitation online. He estimates he finds between 20-30 child abuse images a week which he says have clearly originated on OnlyFans. He says every internet forum he has visited as part of his investigations in the past six months or so, has included child abuse images from OnlyFans. Most of them are videos that were live streamed on the site. In some of them, children are receiving direction – he says. ‘It’s out there, it’s all over the place and it’s being widely traded.’”

Analysis Collaborators and Contact Information

Anti-Human Trafficking Intelligence Initiative (ATII)
Matt Richardson, Director of Intelligence and Investigations
matt@followmoneyfightslavery.org
Based in the United States, ATII, a not-for-profit organization, established in 2019, operates globally to combat modern slavery by leveraging corporate social responsibilities directly through anti-human trafficking program development, facilitating awareness, targeted data collection, technology integration, and sourcing actionable intelligence. They aim to disrupt the market of human trafficking, child exploitation, and CSAM through the advancement of prevention, detection, investigation, and reporting mechanisms. ATII is committed to raising awareness and developing strategic partnerships with intelligence, technology, and data leaders.

University of New Haven
Tim Palmbach, Chair – Forensic Science Department
tpalmbach@newhaven.edu
Tim Palmbach is Chair of the University of New Haven’s Department of Forensic Science at the Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences, rated by Universities.com as the #1 Forensic Science Program in the United States. Under Professor Palmbach’s leadership, the university established the Center for Forensic Investigations of Trafficking in Persons, a unique, first-of-a-kind entity dedicated to the use of forensic-based techniques in the war against human trafficking. Leveraging his nearly 25 years in the Connecticut State Police, which included leading the department’s scientific lab in forensic biology/DNA, chemical and identification analysis, Professor Palmbach has become a leading subject matter expert supporting domestic and international law enforcement to address online sexual exploitation. This work includes cases involving CSAM, non-consensual sexually explicit material, and sex trafficking, often disguised as prostitution.

As noted throughout, we have consulted with Federal, State, and local law enforcement on this analysis. Further, the team has consulted with current and former prosecutors, agents, and detectives from such agencies as Homeland Security Investigations and the US Department of Justice, as well as victims service providers, in the development of this analysis.

U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT

March 17, 2022
Statement from HSI Unit Chief Erin Burke regarding the ATII report:

“Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Child Exploitation Investigations Unit (CEIU) investigates producers and distributors of child sexual abuse material, as well as individuals who travel abroad for the purpose of engaging in sex with minors, also known as transnational child sexual abuse. The CEIU employs the latest technology to collect evidence and track the activities of individuals and organized groups who sexually exploit children using all internet- based platforms to include websites, chat rooms, peer-to-peer trading, social media, gaming apps, open and dark net forums, and live-streaming applications. HSI is dedicated to protecting children across the globe and provides online education and resources via the iGuardian program.”

FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY // LAW ENFORCEMENT SENSITIVE 1