A fire destroys the mansion of one of Pornhub's owners

An image from the local television station that captured the fire that destroyed the porn businessman's mansion. Courtesy

In the early hours of Monday, firefighters extinguished a fire in a residence located in Ahuntsic-Cartierville, a neighborhood of the Canadian city of Montreal.

The flames consumed almost the entire property - a mansion that was valued at US $ 16 million and owned by Feras Antoon, one of the largest entrepreneurs in the online adult content industry.

The main hypothesis of the police is an intentional fire.

The forces of order arrived at the residence after a call received by the emergency services, which indicated the fire and the presence of two individuals on the property located on Jean-Bourdon Avenue. The mansion was uninhabited, as it was in its last stages of construction. As a preventive measure, several neighbors were evacuated. The police service of the city of Montreal confirmed that there are no victims and, so far, no arrests, but that the criminal arson unit is investigating the matter. "We will interview different witnesses and proceed to verify the recordings of the cameras in the area," reported this security body.

In a statement sent to local media, Feras Antoon said: “I am grateful that my family, I and our neighbors are safe. Out of respect for the ongoing police investigation, I will not comment further. " Antoon is the CEO and one of the owners of MindGeek, a conglomerate of electronic platforms - mainly pornography - whose headquarters is located in Montreal, but which is registered for tax reasons in Luxembourg. MindGeek has several of the most consulted adult content sites in the world. Such is the case with Pornhub, RedTube, and YouPorn.

The residence - with eight bedrooms, seven bathrooms, parking for nine vehicles, swimming pool, gym and other amenities - had been put up for sale last week. It should be noted that, in July 2016, Feras Antoon acquired the land to build it in exchange for US $ 1.8 million. In order to carry out this project, Antoon applied for a permit to cut down just over 200 trees. Neighbors and municipal authorities objected, but a judge finally authorized the work.

Feras Antoon is an entrepreneur surrounded by mysteries and reluctant to give interviews.

However, both his name and MindGeek (the company he runs) have been featured frequently in media around the world since late last year.

On December 4, journalist Nicholas Kristof published an article in

The New York Times

noting that Pornhub - owned by MindGeek - hosted images of alleged sexual exploitation and assault and child pornography.

Kristof interviewed some people who assured that the platform benefited from this illegal content and that it had not removed it despite repeated requests.

Pornhub averaged 3.4 billion monthly views in 2020.

After the publication of the article, various politicians and civil organizations in Canada (one of them the Canadian Center for Child Protection) asked the federal government to open an investigation. Pornhub cataloged the New York newspaper's allegations as "irresponsible and blatantly false," underlining having a zero-tolerance policy regarding materials from minors. Visa and MasterCard announced the end of their relationship with the adult platform.

A few days later, Pornhub reported that it had deleted two-thirds of its content, that it would only allow the dissemination of images uploaded by verified clients, and that users would no longer have the ability to download videos. Earlier this year, a Canadian parliament committee began holding hearings with victims, executives and experts on child pornography and other illegal content spread by MindGeek platforms. Feras Antoon and David Tassillo, director of operations, appeared on February 5. Both Antoon and Tassiillo regretted that some people suffered from the dissemination of the images, but repeatedly insisted that the company is doing everything possible to prevent these incidents from happening again.

In early January, a Canadian woman filed a class action lawsuit in a Quebec court, seeking $ 600 million in damages against MindGeek.

All people who have been affected since 2007 by the dissemination of material without consent on any of the company's platforms could join this cause.

In mid-December, a California court received a similar request: 40 women demand $ 40 million on the grounds that Pornhub profited financially from videos shared without their authorization.

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