Youth curious about child pornography turns to dark web to buy content using cryptocurrency, gets probation sentence

SINGAPORE — After becoming curious about child pornography, Jerome Lee Qi Long turned to the “dark web” and used cryptocurrency Bitcoin to pay for explicit pictures of children. 

Separately, he had on his mobile phone at least 50 pictures depicting child abuse, with at least 10 of these pictures depicting children who appeared to be engaged in some form of sexual activity.

The court on Tuesday (Nov 29) sentenced the 23-year-old to 18 months’ probation.

As part of his probation conditions, he has to remain indoors from 11pm to 6am, perform 100 hours of community service and attend a court review in May next year before District Judge Teoh Ai Lin.

His parents posted a bond of S$5,000 to ensure his good behaviour during the probation period.

Lee earlier pleaded guilty to two charges of possessing or gaining access to child abuse material. 

The youth’s curiosity for child pornography started sometime in 2020, when he tried to use the Google search engine on his laptop and mobile phone to find such material online.

Unable to find any, he downloaded a browser that allows users to access the dark web. 

On Oct 7 in 2020 at about 5.15pm, Lee used his laptop to get on the dark web and found a website providing child sexual abuse content. 

Court documents showed that the start page of the website contained at least four images that depicted a girl who looked to be below 16 years of age with her chest exposed. 

Users had to make payments in Bitcoin in order to gain full access to the content. 

Wanting to view more of such pictures, Lee paid 0.0021 Bitcoin. The value of 0.0021 Bitcoin was equivalent to US$22.70 (about S$31) at the time.

After making his payment, Lee still could not access the website except for its start page.

He was arrested on Dec 1 last year after an investigation officer conducted a raid on his home.

Anyone convicted of possessing or gaining access to child abuse material can be jailed for up to five years and fined or caned.