'Welcome to Video' (Part 1): The Dark Web’s Most Vile Empire

CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains content around child sexual abuse material and child exploitation. Listener discretion is advised.

This case makes Dark Web Diaries look tame. This week, we dive into the horrifying Welcome to Video case—one of the darkest and most expansive child exploitation networks ever uncovered. Operating in the shadows of the internet, Welcome to Video was a marketplace of unimaginable crimes, where thousands of users exchanged Bitcoin for access to child abuse material.

At the center of it all was Son Jong-Woo, an unassuming South Korean student who built and maintained the site, allowing it to thrive undetected for years. But in 2017, a single encrypted file linked to the site caught the attention of U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI)—and what they found was more horrifying than anyone could have imagined. This discovery triggered an international investigation spanning the United States, South Korea, and the United Kingdom, with law enforcement racing to uncover the full scale of the operation.

By March 2018, authorities managed to shut the site down, but their work was far from over. Investigators were left combing through hundreds of thousands of videos, unmasking both the victims and the perpetrators behind the screen. What they uncovered exposed not just the website itself, but a massive underground network of offenders—many of whom were hiding in plain sight.

In Part 1, we reveal how a cryptic digital trail led authorities to one of the most sickening and far-reaching child exploitation cases in internet history. But the real nightmare? The people behind it weren’t just lurking in the dark—they were everywhere.

 

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Art for the podcast was created by Kelly Steen. Editing/Production for the podcast by Bltzwolff (bltzwolff@gmail.com).

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References:

Greenberg, A. (2019, October 16). Inside the Bitcoin bust that took down the web’s biggest child abuse site. WIRED. Retrieved from https://wired.com

Janczewski, C. M., Faruqui, Z. M., Reece, K. A., & W2V Team. (n.d.). Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals. Retrieved from https://servicetoamericamedals.org

United States Department of Justice, District of Columbia. (2022, September 7). New York man sentenced to 17 and a half years in prison for sexual exploitation of children and distribution of child pornography. Retrieved from https://justice.gov

United States Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs. (2019, October 16). South Korean national and hundreds of others charged worldwide in the takedown of the largest darknet child pornography website, which was funded by Bitcoin. Retrieved from https://justice.gov

Valdosta Today. (n.d.). Three Georgians named among those charged in the takedown of the largest darknet child pornography website. Retrieved from https://valdostatoday.com

Wikipedia contributors. (n.d.). Welcome to Video case. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Video_case