Darknet Child Exploitation Site The Giftbox Exchange Shut Down
The U.S. Department of Justice has announced the shutdown of The Giftbox Exchange, a .onion website on the darknet dedicated to child exploitation material. At the time of its closure, the site had 72,000 registered users. The site’s forums, which were focused on child sexual abuse content, contained over 56,000 posts and were organized by the age of the victims.
Sentencing of Administrators
The site was created by 29-year-old Patrick Falte from Tennessee. Falte was found guilty and sentenced to 35 years in prison for his involvement in a business exploiting children, three counts of advertising child pornography, and three counts of distributing child pornography. This sentence is in addition to a life sentence he received in 2017, when he and another former administrator were convicted of sexually abusing a child they accessed through The Giftbox Exchange.
Falte managed the site from 2015 to 2016, with all hosting expenses paid exclusively in cryptocurrency. The platform operated as a closed, members-only exchange for illegal content. As an administrator, Falte required new users to upload images or videos depicting the sexual abuse of children to gain access.
Other Administrators Convicted
Three other administrators of The Giftbox Exchange were also arrested and convicted. Benjamin Faulkner, a Canadian and Falte’s accomplice, had already received a life sentence in 2017. He has now received an additional 35 years. Two other administrators, Andrew Leslie from Florida and Brett Bedusek from Wisconsin, were sentenced to 30 and 20 years in prison, respectively.
Investigators discovered that Leslie not only administered The Giftbox Exchange but also ran another unnamed Tor site that distributed child sexual abuse material. In March 2018, Leslie was previously sentenced to 60 years in prison for producing child pornography involving multiple children.
Use of Advanced Technology to Evade Law Enforcement
Prosecutors noted that, in addition to paying for hosting with cryptocurrency, the site’s operators used “other advanced technological means to thwart law enforcement efforts, including file encryption and cryptography.”
The details of how the FBI managed to identify and apprehend the offenders have not been disclosed, and related court documents remain sealed. Authorities are keeping this information confidential to prevent other criminals from adapting their tactics and evading detection.