A Silvis man is in the custody of the US Marshal Service Tuesday on federal child pornography charges. The images that got him there were tracked to him in Silvis, Illinois, all the way from Denmark.
31-year old John Frazer was arrested on federal charges for producing child pornography. He was arrested at his apartment, where police seized a computer and a phone and found the images there.
This case started in Denmark, where Danish police flagged the pornographic images on a Russian website.
Then Russian authorities linked the account that uploaded the images to IP and email addresses in the US.
That's when they contacted the US Department of Homeland Security, who tracked the information all the way to Silvis, Illinois.
Federal authorities tell us this could've happened anywhere in the country and the circumstances of this case aren't unique to these kinds of arrests, but this case is a warning to those who think they can evade local authorities by taking their crimes abroad.
"We are Middle America, we're in the Midwest, people don't want to think that can happen to next to them," Silvis Police Chief Bill Brasche says, "Obviously it can and it did."
"It puts me at ease to know people are watching for this, and will take action when they find these problems, and we will trace that back and it came back to a town the size of Silvis, IL," he says.
Federal investigators were able to narrow down their search across the country to the QCA by pulling clues from the pictures, like a ‘Whitey's Ice Cream' cup seen in the corner of a few images.
They used IP addresses to get subscriber information and an address from Mediacom's records. Then they contacted Silvis and Moline police for their local knowledge and expertise. They were able to help federal authorities find exactly who they were looking for.
"Anytime you can interrupt that, and take that child out of that environment, that's a success, that's a victory," Brasche says.
Police say file-sharing websites and social networks others use everyday to share music and files, criminals use for their own gains.
"It's well known that social media takes you across the world for whatever reasons you choose to use it," Brasche says.
But police say even if the crimes go far beyond their resources, they can still catch these criminals.
"Most people would think ‘If I'm posting things to a Russian porn site, why on earth would this ever track me to Silvis, Illinois?'" Brasche says, "But this shows that it does; it's reassuring to all of us, it's reassuring for me to know that it happens and it worked."
Frazer has a criminal history in Rock Island County. He was convicted of battery and causing bodily harm in 2000.
If convicted this time, he faces a minimum of 15 years in prison and possibly a lifetime of release supervision.
His next court appearance is 9:00 Thursday morning.
