By Bill Fancher and Jody Brown
August 22, 2001

(AgapePress) - Child pornographers had best beware: "Operation Avalanche" is not over yet.

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service took the lead recently in a two-year probe that resulted in the shutdown of the most economically successful Internet-based child porn operation in U.S. history. Almost 150 arrests have resulted thus far from Operation Avalanche, and Chief Postal Inspector Kenneth Weaver says it is not over yet.

"The operation will continue to grow." Weaver says. "There were literally thousands of subscribers to the websites. We took the most egregious [violators] -- those individuals who had a clear predisposition to violate the law -- and went after them. There will be many more arrests in this operation."

The investigation began with a Ft Worth, Texas, company owned and operated by Thomas and Janice Reedy and doing business as Landslide Productions, Inc. Postal Inspectors in 1999 found the Landslide website advertising and conspiring to distribute child pornography. The majority of Landslide's profits came from the subscription sales of child pornography. The Postal Inspection Service says that in just one month, the business grossed as much as $1.4 million.

Weaver believes it is time to clamp down on child pornographers who have been getting more aggressive in their actions. "The use of the mail to traffic in child pornography continues to be a tragic problem in our society," he says. "Of even greater concern, more and more child molesters and child pornographers are turning to cyberspace to seek out potential victims, communicate with others, and locate sources of child pornography."

According to postal authorities, subscribers to the Reedys' illegal child porn websites will face prosecution. They are not publishing names of the pornographers because there has already been one confirmed suicide.

© 2001 AgapePress all rights reserved.

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