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Behind a Secretive Global Network of Non-Consensual Deepfake Pornography
Warning: This article discusses explicit adult content and child sexual abuse material (CSAM)
One of the world’s largest online video game marketplaces says it has referred user accounts to legal authorities after a Bellingcat investigation found tokens to create nonconsensual pornographic deepfakes were being surreptitiously sold on the site.
Accounts on G2A were being used to collect payments for
Clothoff, one of the most popular and controversial nonconsensual pornographic deepfake sites on the internet.
Clothoff disguised the sales as if they were for downloadable gaming content.
“Security is one of our top priorities that we never compromise on, hence we have taken immediate action and suspended the sellers in question until we have investigated it fully,” G2A said, in a statement. “We also decided to report the case to the appropriate authorities.” (G2A said it was reporting the accounts and the companies affiliated with them to authorities in the “companies’ countries of origin” which, as this story outlines below, varies but includes the US and New Zealand.)
Clothoff is part of a loosely affiliated network of similar platforms uncovered in Bellingcat’s investigation.
The network, which also includes the sites
Nudify,
Undress, and
DrawNudes, has variously manipulated financial and online service providers that ban adult content and non-consensual deep fakes by disguising their activities to evade crackdowns. Other services they have tried to exploit include Coinbase, Patreon, Paypal, Shopify, Steam and Stripe.
Behind one G2A account that was selling tokens for
Clothoff is an IT solutions firm called Aurora Borealis Limited Liability Company, listed on the account’s contact page. On its website, Aurora Borealis claims G2A is one of its partners, which the gaming marketplace said is false.
Aurora’s CEO, a Valencia-based entrepreneur named Vitalii Ionov, did not reply to a request for comment, nor did his company. Ionov, as this investigation details, is affiliated with multiple entities that overlap with Clothoff and the network of deepfake porn sites. Another company he is listed as the CEO of has also falsely claimed to be partners with other companies, including Microsoft.
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An online video game marketplace says it has referred user accounts to legal authorities after a Bellingcat investigation found nonconsensual pornographic deepfake tokens were being surreptitiously sold on the site.