Operation Delego was a major international

child pornography Child pornography (also abbreviated as CP, also called child porn or kiddie porn, and child sexual abuse material, known by the acronym CSAM (underscoring that children can not be deemed willing participants under law)), is Eroticism, erotic ma ...

investigation, launched in 2009, which dismantled an international

pedophile ring A child sex ring is a group of adults who are simultaneously involved sexually with multiple minors during the same general time frame. The dynamics of these rings differ from those of more common one-on-one intrafamilial cases in that they are m ...

that operated an invitation-only Internet site named Dreamboard which featured incentives for images of the violent sexual abuse of young children under twelve, including infants. Only 72 charges were filed against the approximately 600 members of Dreamboard due to the extensive

encryption In Cryptography law, cryptography, encryption (more specifically, Code, encoding) is the process of transforming information in a way that, ideally, only authorized parties can decode. This process converts the original representation of the inf ...

involved. Members were required to upload new material at least every 50 days to maintain their access and remain in good standing. Operation Delego is a spinoff investigation from leads developed through " Operation Nest Egg," the prosecution of another online group dedicated to sharing and disseminating child pornography. Operation Nest Egg was a spinoff investigation developed from leads related to another international investigation, "Operation Joint Hammer," which targeted transnational rings of child pornography trafficking. Dozens of law enforcement agencies were involved worldwide in Delego, including

Eurojust The European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust) is an agency of the European Union (EU) dealing with judicial co-operation in criminal matters among agencies of the member states. It is seated in The Hague, Netherlands. Est ...

, and arrests were made on all five continents. Twenty of those charged, however, are only known by their Internet handles, and as such were individually charged as

John Doe John Doe (male) and Jane Doe (female) are multiple-use placeholder names that are used in the British, Canadian, and American legal systems, when the true name of a person is unknown or is being intentionally concealed. In the context of law ...

s and remain at large. However, some of the indictments were unsealed as of August 2011, and the names of some of those involved in Dreamboard are publicly available.

United States Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. United States federal executive departments, federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the Interior minister, interior, Home Secretary ...

Secretary

Janet Napolitano Janet Ann Napolitano (; born November 29, 1957) is an American politician, lawyer, and academic administrator. She served as president of the University of California from 2013 to 2020, on the faculty at the Goldman School of Public Policy at t ...

stated at a news conference that "The board may have been the vehicle for the distribution of up to 123 terabytes of child pornography, which is roughly equivalent to 16,000 DVDs," making this the DHS's largest child porn bust in its history. Launched in 2009 by federal law enforcement, Operation Delego resulted in the arrest of 52 people in 14 countries of which are

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

Kenya Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...

, the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

, the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

Qatar Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a country in West Asia. It occupies the Geography of Qatar, Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it shares Qatar–Saudi Arabia border, its sole land b ...

Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

and

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

, according to

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a United States federal executive departments, federal executive department of the U.S. government that oversees the domestic enforcement of Law of the Unite ...

Attorney General

Eric Holder Eric Himpton Holder Jr. (born January 21, 1951) is an American lawyer who served as the 82nd United States attorney general from 2009 to 2015. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Holder was the first African Ameri ...

. Furthermore, according to federal agents, while Dreamboard's servers were located in

Shreveport Shreveport ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is the List of municipalities in Louisiana, third-most populous city in Louisiana after New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Baton Rouge. The bulk of Shreveport is in Caddo Parish, Lo ...

Louisiana Louisiana ( ; ; ) is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It borders Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states, it ranks 31st in area and 25 ...

, the site's top administrators were in France and Canada.

Convictions

A total of 72 individuals have been charged as a result of Operation Delego. To date, 57 of the 72 charged defendants have been arrested in the United States and abroad. 42 individuals have pleaded guilty. 25 of the 42 individuals who have pleaded guilty for their roles in the conspiracy have been sentenced to prison and have received sentences ranging between 10 years and life in prison. 15 of the 72 charged individuals remain at large and are known only by their online identities. Efforts to identify and apprehend these individuals continue.

Timeline

* On May 10, 2011, Timothy Lee Gentry, 33, of Burlington, Ky., was sentenced to 25 years in prison. * On May 31, 2011, Michael Biggs, 32, of Orlando, Fla., was sentenced to 20 years in prison. * On June 22, 2011, Michael Childs, 49, of Huntsville, Ala., was sentenced to 30 years in prison. * On June 29, 2011, Christopher Luke, 31, of Tonawanda, NY, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for engaging in a child exploitation enterprise. * On July 14, 2011, Charles Christian, 49, of Tilton, Ill., was sentenced to more than 22 years in prison. * On July 17, 2012, Robert Cuff, 49, was sentenced to life in prison for producing and distributing child pornography. * Jonathan Mayer, 29, of Newport, Tenn., and Shane Micah Turner, 33, of Roy, Utah, were sentenced in connection with their participation in the Dreamboard bulletin board. Each received a sentence of 17 ½ years in prison followed by lifetime supervised release, as a result of both defendants pleading guilty to conspiring to advertise child pornography. The sentences were handed down by U.S. District Judge S. Maurice Hicks. * On May 17, 2012 John Wyss, ''aka'' "Bones," 55, of

Monroe, Wisconsin Monroe is a city in Green County, Wisconsin, United States, and its county seat. The population was 10,661 at the 2020 census. The city is bordered by the town of Monroe to the north and the town of Clarno to the south. It is nicknamed the "C ...

, was found guilty, after a four-day jury trial, of one count of engaging in a child exploitation enterprise, one count of conspiracy to advertise child pornography and one count of conspiracy to distribute child pornography. In September 2012 Wyss was sentenced to life in prison. * On January 8, 2013, David Ettlinger, ''aka'' "ee1", 35, of Newton, Massachusetts was sentenced to serve 45 years in prison. In addition to his prison term, Ettlinger was sentenced to lifetime supervised release. *On July 29, 2013, the final two defendants, of those arrested thus far, in the Dreamboard child exploitation and child pornography ring were sentenced to federal prison. * Christopher Blackford, 28, of Charleston, S.C., was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison before U.S. District Court Judge S. Maurice Hicks in the Western District of Louisiana. In addition to his prison sentence, Blackford faces a lifetime of supervised release. Blackford admitted in his April guilty plea that he joined Dreamboard in December 2009 and contributed 84 posts to the online bulletin board that contained child pornography. * William Davis, 39, of Bristol, N.H., was sentenced to more than 17 years in federal prison in addition to a lifetime of supervised release. Davis admitted in his April guilty plea that he posted advertisements offering to distribute child pornography to other members of the board.

Convictions

Timeline

References

External links