US citizen Jones, working at law firm in Hyderabad,was allegedly circulating child porn for a long time
A 42-year-old US citizen was arrested in Hyderabad for allegedly circulating child pornography on the internet, police said. The accused James Kirk Jones from New Jersey was working as a linguistic expert at a law firm in the city since 2012.
The cyber-crime wing of Telangana police received information from Interpol a few days ago that illegal child pornography was being circulated from a particular IP address. The IP address was traced to Mr Jones's home in Madhapur, a suburb of Hyderabad, after which cops started watching the activities of the accused to see if he was also abusing children physically. He was arrested on Tuesday.
The US citizen, according to the police, was downloading and uploading child pornography in the form of videos and images. A laptop containing 29,288 videos and images, 490 Giga Tribe profiles and 24 twitter handlers/profiles sharing child pornography, an external hard drive containing adult pornography and also an i-Phone containing adult pornography, were seized, the police said.
A case has been filed under Information Technology Act, 2000.
Mr Jones has reportedly confessed that from childhood he developed the habit of watching child pornography and has been downloading, watching and sharing such material ever since.
Mr Jones was produced before the court yesterday and remanded in judicial custody. If convicted, he might face up to five years imprisonment.
The police said they will inform the US consulate officials about the arrest of Mr Jones. Further investigation about his activities in India is being done, the cops said.