According to a criminal complaint, a Houston-area man, identified as Andrew Venegas, was arrested Thursday and charged federally with sexual exploitation of children for collecting obscene pictures and clips of women around the United States, many of whom were juveniles, and using them for blackmail.
Andrew Venegas, 23, has advertised his content to others online “at least” since the summer of 2022 and explicitly offered “content depicting minors under the age of 18,” according to the affidavit.
The accusation claims that Andrew Venegas was uploading sexually explicit information on a website that “mentions the unlawful intrusion into Snapchat accounts as a service offered on the site.”
Several victims around the country complained to law enforcement that their photographs or videos were posted by Andrew Venegas to the same website without their permission, including those who said the content was obtained from their Snapchat accounts without their knowledge, according to the affidavit.
Law enforcement investigators believe “over 1000 different females had their images posted on the website, often accompanied by their true names,” according to the affidavit.
According to the affidavit, Andrew Venegas, whose uploaded content frequently bore a watermark reading “TELEGRAM Starkylol,” also allegedly used a Telegram account to share and market pictures and videos acquired through “knowingly forcing women to create and/or provide images against their will” through blackmail.
Andrew Venegas was arrested in Houston on Thursday after ultimately selling content to undercover law enforcement investigators, according to the affidavit.
Until a preliminary examination and detention hearing scheduled for July 18 before Magistrate Judge Christina Bryan, Andrew Venegas is still detained, as per the court docket. Venegas presently does not have an attorney listed.
According to safety advisories given by the agencies, the FBI and US Justice Department have warned of a major surge in financial sextortion schemes targeting kids, with at least 3,000 juveniles, predominantly boys, targeted in 2022.
According to the government, predators will start conversing with the targeted youngster on social media platforms before shifting the conversation to a new platform that primarily employs direct messaging. Victims are duped into supplying obscene material, and then the perpetrators demand money – often hundreds of dollars – while threatening to reveal the photographs to the victim’s family and friends, according to a Justice Department safety notice. Exactly what Andrew Venegas had been doing.
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