Operation Ore

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Operation Ore was a large-scale international police operation that commenced in 1999 intending to indict thousands of users of websites featuring child pornography. In the United Kingdom, it led to 7,250 suspects indentified, 4,283 homes searched, 3,744 arrests, 1,848 charged, 1,451 convictions, 493 cautioned, 879 investigations underway and 109 children removed from suspected dangerous situations.^[1]

Operation Ore succeeded the similar crackdown in the United States, called Operation Avalanche, though in the U.S. only 100 people were charged from the 35,000 US access records available^[2].

1 Origins
2 Landslide Productions
3 Controversies
4 References
5 External links
6 See also

[edit] Origins

In April 1999, United States Postal Inspection Service of Texas had received an internal complaint via postal inspector Robert Adams. Adams had received a tip from an acquaintance in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Ronnie Miller provided information in relation to a website advertising child pornography. On September 8, 1999, federal agents raided the Fort Worth, Texas, home and offices of Thomas and Janice Reedy. The Reedys operated an internet business called Landslide Productions Inc., which the FBI knew had sold subscriptions to websites offering child pornography. In effect it was an adult pornography empire stretching across three continents, some 250,000 subscribers in 60 countries.^[1] On August 6 2001, Thomas Reedy was sentenced to 1,335 years in prison. His accomplice, Janice Reedy, was sentenced to 14 years. This marked the beginning of Operation Avalanche.

The Landslide subscriber database has recently been found to contain evidence of credit card fraud, on a massive scale. Fraudulent credit card transactions in the Landslide database is estimated to be around 66%.

[edit] Landslide Productions

Landslide provided payment systems for adult webmasters. These systems were automated, webmasters could sign up to the system online and people accessing the websites would go through the payment or login system before being granted access. The principle systems were AVS for Adult Verification System and Keyz because it operated via the keyz.com domain name owned by Landslide.

An adult classified section of a Landslide website allegedly included postings offering to trade Keyz passwords. USPIS and Dallas Police brought their investigation to the attention of Terri Moore, an assistant district attorney.

The operation led to the seizure of user information of thousands of persons who were alleged to have accessed a child pornography website with their credit cards. It also resulted in the arrests of several prominent individuals, ranging from police officers and judges to The Who's guitarist Pete Townshend (who admitted accessing child porn images purely for research purposes, and consequently accepted a police caution) and Massive Attack's Robert Del Naja, whose credit card had been used in a single $3 purchase on an adult web site not connected with child pornography in 1999.

[edit] Controversies

Operation Ore has in recent years come under closer scrutiny, and the police forces in the UK have been criticised for their poor handling of the operation. The most common criticism is that they failed to determine whether or not the owners of credit cards in Landslide's database actually accessed any sites containing child porn, unlike in the US where it was determined in advance whether or not credit card subscribers had accessed these sites.

In 2006 a number of people arrested in Operation Ore have filed a class action law suit against the detectives behind Operation Ore alleging false arrest.