Italian non-profit group Meter,
which hunts paedophiles on the internet, said on Friday that the
deep web was becoming the new focus of the fight against online
child pornography and that criminals were increasingly using
Bitcoin as a system of payment.
The deep web is a section of the Internet that is not
indexed by standard search engines.
Meter said that about 70,000 child pornography sites in the
deep web had been reported to authorities between 2012 and 2014.
"The deep web is the hidden part of the Internet that has
become the ideal place for crime rings," said Meter. "The
phenomenon has moved towards this uncontrollable free-zone at an
exponential pace."
Meter President Fortunato Di Noto said that cases of sexual
torture on increasingly young children were rising and that
paedophiles were finding it easier to access sites anonymously.
Huge amounts of transactions are taking place via
peer-to-peer system Bitcoin, bypassing intermediaries such as
banks so that payments are harder to trace, Meter said.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
