HUNTING ‘THE WORLD’S WORST PAEDO’
»»Irishman accused of running internet’s biggest child sex ring »»Millions of his files revealed horrific abuse of babies and toddlers »»Suspect may face 100-year sentence as he awaits trial in US
TODAY the Irish Mirror goes inside the hunt for an Irishman who US investigators say is the biggest distributor of evil abuse videos worldwide.
We have got access to FBI documents that reveal the seedy world of Eric Marques, who was allegedly managing a giant child sex web system.
The Dubliner, who was extradited from Ireland to a prison near Baltimore in the US, provided a secure net for paedophiles to access porn.
He led a six-year campaign against extradition and even pleaded with the Irish Director of Public Prosecutions to prosecute him here.
Today the international manhunt by police hackers and undercover agents is revealed.
Gardai helped their colleagues in the US find Marques by carrying out surveillance and raids on a Dublin address.
The list of abuse files is endless and the catalogue of innocent childhood victims never-ending. It was down to the FBI’S Strategic Initiatives Unit to hunt down the perpetrator.
The bureau uncovered the website under the Tor Network, a free and open source software that gives people the chance to communicate anonymously.
Marques is believed to have created an Anonymous Hosting Service to internet users – a hidden forum deep in cyberspace.
It was clearly an effort to stymie efforts to identify the users, namely by not showing the IP addresses of the computers they are using to access the evil content.
The FBI documents said: “Unlike an open internet website, [it] is not possible to determine through public look-ups the IP address of a computer
hosting a network website. Neither law enforcement nor users can therefore determine the location of the computer that hosts such a website through those public look-ups.”
Marques’ scheme allowed users of the AHS to create their own websites to place the porn online.
In a section on the site home page, allegedly operated by him, titled “What’s Allowed”, there was a warning to users. It read: “We do not give permission for upload of any illegal files. If you choose to do so anyway, we are not responsible for your actions.”
There was also a warning on the “Contact” link page that declared: “I will not assist in any use this server for illegal purposes [sorry, I have to protect myself ].”
There were other countless warnings to people and an encrypted email for complaints.
Marques allegedly further declared in another area: “If you do illegal activities on this server, I will not go to jail for you. If my identity is compromised and I am questioned/forced to co-operate to identify you, I will do it to ensure my freedom.”
Despite all those warnings in general discussion groups there were titles such as “As I like to kill a girl or boy?” which discussed the different way to murder a child for sexual gratification.
In discussion groups there was child sex tourism and among countless posts there was even a category “Female And Male Babies and Toddlers”. In 2013 the FBI identified a location for the server used by Marques to the Northern French city of Roubaix.
Investigators contacted the French police who then found where the server was registered.
They discovered it had a billing name and address of Marques in Las Vegas, Nevada. This was a postbox at a private mail facility.
There was also a direct debit set up in his name from a Us-based bank. According to the server company the
Irishman allegedly had 400 computer servers but they had expired.
Further enquiries established he renewed a contract on the target server.
The police then checked the private mail facility in Las Vegas and looked at the account in Marques’ name.
It forwarded mail to an address in Mountjoy Square, Dublin.
The FBI contacted the gardai who put an operation in place and placed surveillance on the address and they photographed Marques coming and going from the location. Garda experts tailed him around Dublin.
Then on July 29, 2013, his cyber empire crashed down – gardai launched a raid on his address and found the suspect inside.
As Marques was questioned by officers here, their FBI colleagues were continuing the painstaking work of following the online trail of evidence.
They had identified the so-called target server had been accessed from a computer in the US but then they discovered it was a “virtual private server” – a fake server that mimics a real one using sophisticated computer software.
Marques was attempting to hide his tracks and the system hides the identities and files of users.
As they followed the paper trail they found the Irishman was the single listed subscriber.
The FBI computer experts found this VPS was accessed from the address in Dublin a month before Marques’ arrest.
A further smoking gun was the fact the only IP address that remotely accessed the server with an encryption key was from his Dublin address.
Marques is now behind bars in a giant maximum security US prison in Maryland and will stand trial shortly on child porn charges.
He was born in New York and his parents are divorced.
Marques has lived in Ireland since childhood with his Irish mother and sister.
His Brazilian-born father Antonio, an architect who worked for Irish Rail for 15 years and now lives in the United Arab Emirates, maintains his son’s innocence.
The FBI reject his father’s claim that his son had merely been an “absentee landlord” on the internet.
Investigators say he not only knew what was happening on the sites, he also had control of at least one of them.
Marques now faces a 100-year sentence if found guilty of running the twisted webpage.