Profile: Eric Eoin Marques, the dark net’s prolific child porn distributor

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Editors note: This article contains references to child porn and an illegal actor who operated on what is known as the dark web. The dark-web is a version of the internet that isn’t widely used or accessible to most and generally has to be accessed through something the Tor browser.

Facts:

Name: Eric Eoin Marques

Charges: Conspiracy to distribute otherwise illegal child porn

Method: Over the dark-web, an encrypted part of the internet only available by otherwise alternative browsers.

According to the FBI, federal agents arrested a man this week identified as Eric Marques. Officials say that Marques illegally launched a web-hosting service on the “dark web” that allowed users to host sequences of child porn believed to total more than 7k images.

Records indicate that he was first arrested in 2013 in Ireland but only in recent years was actually extradited to the United States to stand trial for his crimes.