Among those charged, Ruben Andre Garcia, a GirlsDoPorn producer and recruiter, was sentenced to 20 years in prison; Matthew Isaac Wolfe, who admitted to having a “wide range of responsibilities” at GirlsDoPorn, according to the DOJ, was sentenced to 14 years; cameraman Theodore Wilfred Gyi was sentenced to four years; and GirlsDoPorn bookkeeper Valorie Moser pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and is awaiting sentencing. Finally, in March this year, the alleged GirlsDoPorn mastermind, Michael Pratt, was extradited from Spain to the US to face charges linked to the operation. He has pleaded not guilty. In total, those involved in GirlsDoPorn have been ordered to pay more than $35 million in restitution.
Brian Holm, a managing attorney at the Holm Law Group and a longtime civil attorney for GirlsDoPorn survivors, confirmed that the videos posted to the deepfake sexual abuse website were originally from GirlsDoPorn. These include, Holm says, survivors who have been involved in the legal cases against GirlsDoPorn or against Pornhub.
“It’s a real double whammy for trafficking victims to see their videos used like this,” says Holm, adding that the videos are the tip of the iceberg. “From what I’ve seen on that site, I think there’s 10 times the amount you sent me that I’ve seen on there.”
The 12 videos posted by the account seen by WIRED have received up to 15,000 views each, and several have a ‘girlsdoporn.com’ watermark on the footage. The account that posted the videos has a version of “GirlsDoPorn” as its username and included the sex trafficking site in the title of the videos.
WIRED is not naming the deepfake abuse website due to its role in spreading abusive content or the celebrities featured in the videos. The website is the largest website of its kind—hosting tens of thousands of videos and receiving millions of visitors. In April, the website blocked visitors from the UK after lawmakers in the country announced plans to make it a criminal offense to create nonconsensual explicit deepfakes.
“These creators of sexually explicit deepfakes have no regard whatsoever for the women and girls who are victims of sex trafficking and now being further abused through this deepfake sexual abuse,” says Clare McGlynn, a professor of law at Durham University, who works to counter image-based abuse.
“This website is actively choosing to share recordings of actual sexual assaults,” McGlynn says. “These are heinous acts, deliberately and knowingly causing life-shattering and life-threatening harms. The drive for profit, for fueling the trade in nonconsensual porn, knows no bounds. This shows a contempt for the rights of women and girls.”
Neither the account posting the deepfake GirlsDoPorn videos nor the site’s anonymous administrator’s replied to questions from WIRED.
At the end of March, another user on the website asked whether the GirlsDoPorn footage was allowed, saying it made them “feel sick.” They suggested some people may not know the history of GirlsDoPorn but pointed out: “This … one user clearly does tho, with branding themselves with a rape website.” A moderator replied saying they were not going to remove the videos but said if there was a “list” of videos confirmed to include sex trafficking victims they would notify the website’s administrators to take them down.