The four defendants in the trial of Boystown, probably the largest child pornographic Darknet platform in the world, have been sentenced to long prison terms.

As the Frankfurt Regional Court announced in its judgment on Wednesday, Alexander G., who was responsible for the website's servers, must be imprisoned for twelve years.

Andreas G., who worked as a moderator on the platform, was sentenced to a total of ten years and six months in prison.

In both cases, the court saw it as proven that the men also abused their children, some of them severely.

The Trial Chamber ordered preventive detention for both of them.

In this way, the court ensures that the men are not released and become dangerous to the general public even after their sentences have ended.

The third operator, Christian K., was sentenced to a total of eight years in prison.

The German, who lives in Paraguay, was extradited to Germany last October.

The fourth defendant, Fritz K., one of the most active users of the platform, must be imprisoned for seven years.

The Boystown portal had more than 400,000 members around the world before it was shut down in April 2021, almost four times as many as the Elysium platform, which was shut down in 2017.

Until then, this case had been considered the most important success in the fight against the digital exchange of child pornography in Germany.

Joint task force across several countries

On Boystown, users had access to images and videos, some of which showed the most severe sexual abuse of children, especially boys.

After months of investigations by a task force initiated from Germany and coordinated by Europol, the Federal Criminal Police Office and the Central Office for Combating Internet Crime (ZIT) smashed up the portal in spring 2021 together with investigators from the Netherlands, Sweden, Australia, the USA and Canada and arrested the suspects .

The ZIT, which belongs to the Frankfurt Public Prosecutor's Office, conducts investigations into Internet crimes in Germany with unclear local jurisdiction and proceedings involving many suspects.

The case was therefore heard before the Frankfurt Regional Court.

The four men who have now been convicted lived in Hamburg, near Munich, in the Paderborn district and in Paraguay until they were arrested.

The defendants were accused, among other things, of gang-like distribution of child pornography.

During the trial, the criminal court repeatedly excluded the public from the hearings in order to protect the victims.

The defendants behaved differently during the trial, but did not deny their actions.

Alexander G. and Fritz K. made confessions about their defense attorneys.

Christian K. did not want to provide any information, but said his statements to the police were true.

Only Andreas G. expressed himself and also answered questions from the court and other parties involved.

Among other things, he testified that he only became aware of the seriousness of his crimes while in custody.