Process: The horror on the net: This is how the Boystown child porn platform worked

Andreas G. is sitting at his computer when a special unit of the police stormed his apartment in the Paderborn district on April 13, 2021. Only a few seconds, then the 49-year-old is overwhelmed. Even more important: G. doesn’t manage to lock his computer. That’s what the officials care about. They bring G. into the kitchen, employees of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) start securing evidence on the computer. It is the beginning of the end of one of the largest international dark web child pornography platforms, its name: Boystown.

The portal has more than 400,000 user accounts and cannot be found using normal internet search engines. In the virtual realm of shadows, pedophiles exchange photos and videos with each other, some of which show the most severe sexual abuse of children – preferably boys.

The management team consists of four men, all German. For several months, the BKA observed them, monitored their phone calls and documented the distribution of photos and videos. Ultimately, the German investigators are supposed to get crucial tips from the US Homeland Security Agency and from the Netherlands got.

A main suspect comes from Upper Bavaria

Andreas G., who is sitting on the kitchen floor with a bloody nose, finds out what the investigators know about him. He cooperates. When a message from Alexander G., another Boystown administrator, flashes on his cell phone, he follows the police officers’ instructions. He answers as if nothing had happened. A little later, the BKA arrested Alexander G. in the Bavarian district of Mühldorf am Inn, and confiscated computers, hard drives, USB sticks and mobile phones there as well. A server is also secured, which the IT technician had operated from the basement of a customer – a church child and youth welfare facility, of all things.

The officers found Fritz K. in a Hamburg retirement home. He only moved in two weeks earlier, many of his things are still in boxes, but not his computer. When the police arrive, the 66-year-old is active on Boystown. The visually impaired man does not resist. Christian K., the fourth in the group, originally from northern Germany, was arrested in Paraguay as part of cross-border police cooperation and was extradited to Germany a few months later at his own request. Andreas G., Alexander G., Fritz K. and Christian K. have been in custody since their arrest.

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In mid-September, before the district court in Frankfurt am Main, seat of the Central Office for Combating Internet Crime (ZIT), the process started against the Boystown masterminds. The indictment is more than 400 pages long. The public prosecutor’s office spent hours demonstrating the criminal energy and naturalness with which the accused acted. To protect the victims, the public was temporarily excluded from the reading of the indictment, and again and again temporarily on later days of the hearing when the court presented the men with evidence.

BKA officials explain what everyday life was like in Boystown

Alexander G. and Christian K. are said to have been in charge of building up the pedophile forum from mid-2019. Just like them, Andreas G. was one of the administrators. Fritz K. was one of the most active users and was in regular contact with the others via encrypted chat. All of the defendants are accused of possessing and distributing child pornographic photos, videos and writings. Andreas G. and Alexander G. are also accused of child abuse.

Five victims are represented in the process as joint plaintiffs by lawyers. With their reports, two experts provide assessments of criminal responsibility and the risk that the accused could be punishable again after serving a prison sentence. Even if they have behaved cooperatively after the arrest, they are threatened with preventive detention.

As witnesses at the trial, several BKA officials have already described what everyday life was like in Boystown. The investigators observed what was happening on the platform from December 2020 and, after the operators were arrested, also evaluated the Boystown database and all other evidence. Accordingly, there was a clear hierarchy, headed by administrators and moderators, and the following rules for posting contributions: Please only videos and pictures of boys, not small children, and please no physical violence – as if child abuse is not violence per se. For material that was particularly successful in the eyes of the pedophiles, users were sometimes even awarded medals as recognition and as further encouragement.

“Putzy” alone posted more than 3,600 posts

“With our own account, which every user on Boystown could create free of charge, we were able to view activities in the public part of the site,” said a BKA woman in court. “However, a large number of dissemination actions took place in closed areas.” In order to gain trust and gain access, the investigators themselves posted artificially generated images.

Fritz K., who called himself “Putzy” in the forum, attributes the prosecution to more than 3,600 posts. According to the BKA, he is one of the 40 most active Boystown users. Andreas G. aka “Phantom” is accused of 79 distribution acts, including evidence of his own abuse. Alexander G. or “Newbee” was Boystown’s financier; essentially, he paid for the platform’s server in Moldova from his money. He also sent a laptop and external hard drives to Christian K., pseudonym “Don Dildo”, in Paraguay.

Andreas G. and Alexander G. in particular have made extensive confessions. Her remarks provide insights and explanations as to how it can happen that people ignore the suffering of the vulnerable in order to live out their sexuality. As a child, he himself was abused by his stepfather, as Alexander G. said in several interrogations. He is a man with thick, silver-grey hair, a youthful complexion and a pointed nose, which he usually sticks out over his white mask on the days of the hearing. With wide, alert eyes, he follows the report that psychiatrist Dr. Sven Krimmer in court about him. That can decide about his further life.

One of the perpetrators abused his own children

“There is an exceptionally high risk of renewed crime,” says the medical director of the forensic clinic in Haina, Hesse. “The pedosexual inclination will always live in him, it won’t go away, not even in old age.” This also applies in the event of chemical castration, to which he has agreed. Alexander G. is culpable because he is normally intelligent and adaptable. This is proven by his marriage to a woman whom he led for ten years and who gave birth to two children.

Alexander G. admitted that one of his biological sons and a stepson were among his victims of abuse. He filmed the acts and shared the videos. He also published lyrics on Boystown describing the rape of boys.

“One can question the fact that he only wrote the stories to deal with the suffering he had experienced himself, as he claims. Then why did he publish it and allow others to get excited about it?”, expert Krimmer considers. Alexander G. was always aware that he was doing forbidden things.

The verdict is expected at the end of November

For Andreas G., who, among other things, sexually abused a nephew and distributed photos and videos of it on Boystown, an expert has already recommended preventive detention after imprisonment. The stocky East Westphalian, who wears a full beard and always wears a short, white shirt, made extensive statements on one of the first days of the trial and asked his victims for forgiveness. He had led a double life and repeatedly struggled with his sexuality, Andreas G assured. He was ready to accept any punishment and hoped for professional help, because he couldn’t cope with his problems on his own: “I want to make a clean sweep.” futile wish considering the likely lifelong suffering of its victims.

The fact that, according to the Frankfurt public prosecutor’s office, investigations are currently underway against other Boystown users is partly thanks to Andreas G. When he was arrested, he drew the police’s attention to the fact that the Darknet platform’s server had a so-called dead man’s switch. A special action must be taken every 24 hours, he warned, otherwise all Boystown data would be irretrievably encrypted. Andreas G. thus prevented the destruction of traces and evidence. After the arrest of the leadership team and the backup and evaluation of all data, the BKA and the Boystown public prosecutor switched off.

The investigators are already certain that users will move on and create successor platforms on the Darknet. “Boystown was built to ensure continuity when other pedophile forums were shut down,” said a BKA officer on the witness stand. The Frankfurt public prosecutor’s office does not want to reveal how exactly the investigators got the technical clues to the Boystown backers in the Darknet. “Anyone who makes themselves punishable should not feel safe, not even on the Darknet,” says a spokeswoman. The verdict in the trial is expected to come at the end of November.