"Did bad things": Administrator of child porn platform before the district court of Regensburg 

Created: 07/22/2022, 20:47

By: Michael Bothner

Walter K. was in custody until the end of 2020.

He now lives with his parents again and is undergoing therapy.

© Michael Bothner

The former super-administrator of a child porn platform is currently facing charges at the Regensburg Regional Court.

Regensburg

In mid-2020, investigators tracked down Walter K. (name changed).

The US FBI has given the decisive clue.

At the time, the 30-year-old from near Koblenz in Rhineland-Palatinate was a leading figure behind the Internet platform "TweenFanIsland" (TFI).

The Bamberg public prosecutor's office, at whose central office for cybercrime Bavaria the investigations converge, classifies K. as the platform operator's right-hand man.

Child porn platform on the dark web: 400 members uploaded data

Until it was shut down by US authorities in July 2020, the TFI platform was a global forum for the pedophile scene.

Almost 400 registered members exchanged child pornographic material here on the Darknet.

What could be shared was clearly regulated: it was about pictures and videos of girls between the ages of six and 16.

The platform already occupied the 5th Criminal Chamber of the Regional Court of Regensburg last autumn.

A 54-year-old Berliner (pseudonym "Mona") and a 57-year-old former lawyer from Regensburg, who called himself "Good Uncle", had distributed child pornographic material there.

They were sentenced to several years in prison.

Child porn platform: "Good Uncle" was a Regensburg lawyer

The "Good Uncle" is said to have uploaded something to the platform almost every day between June 2019 and July 2020 before the officers found him sitting at the computer during a search on July 18, 2020, while he was still logged on to the site.

The investigators secured around 900,000 files from him.

In addition, the Regensburger was actively involved as an administrator in the operation of the platform.

Walter K., who appears in court in a blue shirt, is said to have played a similarly important role.

He has placed a backpack in front of him to shield himself from looks and photos.

In relation to the court, however, he is anything but covered.

Former admin of child porn platform: "I've done bad things."

Immediately after the indictment was read out by Attorney General Manuela Teubl, K. admitted the allegations.

He was last in therapeutic treatment and "recognized that I did bad things".

Sometimes difficult to understand, the accused mumbles a bit, he roughly tells how he became part of the US platform.

He has known about his pedophile inclination since 2014.

"Over time" he then came to "pages typical of the scene" and got deeper and deeper.

Former admin of child porn platform lives with parents again and has internet ban

Four years later he was deep in the darkest corners of the internet and "then kept climbing".

The experienced "recognition" of other users "did him good," says the 30-year-old, who has been living with his parents since his release from custody in October 2020.

His mother has banned him from the internet to this day.

It is the IP address and thus the Internet connection of the parental home that the German investigators received from the American security authorities.

They will start monitoring the connection in mid-2020.

Because Walter K. surfs via a Tor browser, the investigators get to know when the accused is on the Internet during the observation.

"But we can't see the exact contents of Tor packages," said a responsible official at the BKA in court.

(By the way: Our brand new Regensburg newsletter will keep you regularly informed about all the important stories from the World Heritage city and the Upper Palatinate. Register here.)

Former admin of child porn platform: Investigators climb into the apartment via "Storm ladder".

Nonetheless, officers soon find out that Walter K. must be the one accessing the child porn platform.

On July 18, 2020, BKA officials climbed the parents' house via a "scale ladder", landed on the balcony of the parents' house, but initially only surprised the mother.

Through the living area, past the father, who is only dressed in his underpants, it finally goes up one floor and into the accused's room.

The surprise fails.

Walter K. is able to close his laptop in time and thus activate the encryption.

After arrest: 30 terabytes of material seized

"Without the passwords, we probably wouldn't have been able to crack the data carriers," admits the clerk when asked by the court.

Shocked by the operation, K. is initially silent.

But a few weeks later, during an interrogation in Würzburg, he gave the access data and even pointed out to the investigators a hidden, secure area - and thus further data material.

The investigators were able to secure a total of 30 terabytes of child and youth pornographic material.

Not everything was actually criminally relevant.

The official speaks of so-called “preferred material”.

These are images that are not punishable on their own, but can provide clear indications when viewed as a whole.

On the hidden container, the investigators found material with some serious sexual abuse of people and sexual abuse of children.

Child Porn Platform: Where 'mrgirllove' met 'Fucknuts'

K. is said to have been active on TFI from March 2019 as “mrgirllove”.

According to the defendant, the operator, who himself operated under the nickname "Fucknuts", contacted and invited him on another platform.

After just a few days he had become a super administrator - the highest level in the chat hierarchy - and was thus above the two already convicted "Mona" and "Good Uncle".

The 30-year-old also uploaded a total of 958 individual images spread over ten image galleries.

As a kind of "right hand of the forum operator" (Attorney General Teubl), he was also responsible for securing regular backups of the forum and thus restoring the chat if necessary.

That was the case every few days.

According to the Attorney General, the accused is threatened with four years in prison.

His defense attorney wants to work towards a suspended sentence.

The trial is scheduled for four days.

The verdict is expected to follow next week.

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