Two of the biggest credit card companies in the U.S. are being accused of facilitating payments to access child pornography and sex trafficking on the popular site OnlyFans. The allegations come from a whistleblower complaint filed in 2023.
In the complaint filed with the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Unit, a whistleblower claims that Mastercard and Visa failed to prevent their networks from facilitating payments for child sexual abuse material and sex trafficking on OnlyFans, Reuters reports.
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The whistleblower alleges that the two major card companies had been aware that their networks were being used to pay for illegal content on the site since 2021 but allegedly ignored the illicit revenue.
According to Reuters, the whistleblower filed the complaint in 2023. Federal agents contacted Mastercard and Visa in 2021 and 2022, warning the companies about the unlawful content.
The whistleblower, who is also said to have assisted with a 2022 anti-trafficking study, found a “high volume” of OnlyFans accounts linked to child pornography or sex trafficking. The study was shared with the card companies.
The complaint argues that by processing payments for OnlyFans, Mastercard and Visa “willfully failed” to uphold anti-money laundering rules under the Bank Secrecy Act, prompting the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and two other federal agencies to take action.
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