LOS ANGELES — A man alleged to be California’s most active trader of child pornography was arrested Wednesday in an early morning raid on his Los Angeles home.
Alvaro Rosas, 34, was booked for investigation of distributing child pornography, said Los Angeles police Detective Tracie Noggle, who led the investigation.
Rosas declined a request for comment by The Associated Press after his arrest.
The raid was conducted by LAPD, Homeland Security Investigations and FBI agents who are part of the regional unit of the federal Internet Crimes Against Children task force.
Investigators said they found on Rosas’ computer hard drive at least 1,000 videos and 200 photos with file titles that referred to children, including mention of toddlers, 4-year-olds and pre-teen hardcore. An investigator was able to confirm dozens of the videos and photos as child porn. They also found child pornography on his smartphone and on CDs at the home.
The search was only an initial preview and not a full forensic analysis of a 750 gigabyte hard drive, investigators said.
Rosas allegedly confessed to possession of child pornography during questioning after the raid but told police that a peer-to-peer file-sharing program automatically distributed the files.
Rosas is being held without bail because of an ICE hold due to his immigration status.
Law enforcement officers used tracking programs to identify Rosas, who they said turned up hundreds of thousands of times as a child porn sharer. Peer-to-peer file sharing programs allow people to share folders with other people in an online community and download files from other shared folders.
“It’s like they’re getting re-victimized,” Noggle said. “And unfortunately these images are out on the Internet potentially forever, because they just keep getting circulated.”
The LAPD’s Internet Crimes Against Children unit conducts raids often once a week and up to four times a week, said unit Lt. Andrea Grossman. She said dealing with such crimes are key to protecting children.
“When people say it’s images only, it’s not images only,” Grossman said. “We’ve found they’re thinking about or they’re going to molest children.”