Alleged child porn baron remanded

A Irishman described by an FBI special agent as “the largest facilitator of child porn on the planet” has been further remanded in custody by the High Court.

The US authorities are seeking the extradition of Eric Eoin Marques, aged 28, who is alleged to be involved in the distribution of online child pornography.

Following a brief appearance before Mr Justice Paul McDermott at the High Court yesterday, Mr Marques was remanded in custody until Thursday.

The court heard the minister for justice is awaiting a formal extradition request from US authorities seeking Mr Marques’s surrender.

The court previously heard Mr Marques, who has Irish and US citizenship, was arrested on a provisional warrant that records charges of distributing and promoting child pornography on the internet.

Ronan Kennedy, counsel for the Attorney General, asked the court to further remand Mr Marques in custody until the full, formal request for Mr Marques’s extradition was received from the US.

If the full request was not received within 18 days of his arrest, then Mr Marques would be released, he said.

Mr Marques’s lawyers said they had no objection to the State’s request.

Last week, Mr Justice Paul Gilligan refused to grant Mr Marques, with an address at Mountjoy Square in Dublin, bail until the extradition request has been determined.

The US authorities are seeking his extradition on four charges. If convicted, he faces sentences of up to 30 years, the court heard.

The charges relate to images on over 100 “anonymous websites” described as being extremely violent, graphic and depicting the rape and torture of pre-pubescent children. The websites in question have “thousands of members” who have posted “millions of images” of child pornography. Some the children involved are as young as infants, the FBI claim.

The charges were brought against Mr Marques following a year-long investigation involving both the FBI and the gardaí. He was arrested in Dublin last week on foot of a provisional extradition warrant issued by a US court on Jul 29.

The US authorities believe the websites they have targeted as part of their investigation operate on a single computer server to a single anonymous hosting service. That hosting service, has been accessed and administered to via a single IP address, the numerical label assigned to each computer or device that uses the internet, in the United States. The US claims Mr Marques is the sole administrator of the anonymous hosting service for the websites located on the single server the FBI’s investigation has targeted. It claims no other customer uses the server, and according to the internet server provider Eric Marques is the single subscriber who contracts for the use of the server. It is claimed he accessed the server via his address in Dublin. It is also alleged he attempted to obscure his identity when connecting to the server. Payment for the use of the server was made by a debit card in Eric Marques name from a US bank account, and the billing address was through a private mailbox facility in Las Vegas assigned to Eric Marques. Mail from that address was forwarded to Mr Marques’s address at Russell House Mountjoy Square in Dublin, it is alleged.

Investigating gardaí and the FBI both objected to bail being granted on the grounds including Mr Marques represented a flight risk.

The court heard evidence large sums of money had passed through his bank accounts, including large payments sent to accounts in Romania. The court also heard a search of Mr Marques’s computer revealed he had made inquires about getting a visa and entry into Russia.

He had never come to the attention of the authorities before.

Marques, who is not consenting to his surrender to the US, claims he has friends in Romania who he has helped out financially. He has done a Google search about Russian visa arising out of the controversy surrounding former US NSA employee Edward Snowden.