Creator of infamous Playpen website sentenced to 30 years in prison

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Steven Chase-creator of the world's most notorious darknet child pornography site, Playpen-was sentenced to 30 years in prison earlier this week.

By comparison, his two co-defendants pleaded guilty and were sentenced to 20 years each earlier this year for their involvement in Playpen. According to the plea agreement of one of Chase's co-defendants, David Browning, Playpen hosted 215,000 user accounts and distributed 50,000 images and videos of child pornography before the site was taken down.

A Friday press release published by the FBI notes that Chase launched the website in the summer of 2014, and the FBI rapidly began an investigation. However, the FBI was stymied by the fact that the site was hosted on a Tor-hidden service for a few months. But the feds eventually caught a lucky break and received a tip from a foreign law enforcement agency, which included Chase's true IP address.

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