The Guy Behind the GirlsDoPorn Site Is Now on the FBI’s Most Wanted List

The man whom a number of younger girl alleged coerced them into novice porn shoots is on the lam from federal regulation enforcement, and all that operating has solely made cops wish to costume him down much more, so to talk.

The FBI announced Wednesday they had been including Michael James Pratt, the principle man behind the predatory novice porn web site GirlsDoPorn, to their Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. Investigators have boosted the $50,000 reward to $100,000 for info that would result in an arrest. Pratt was charged with intercourse trafficking in California federal court docket again in 2019.

The FBI stated that between 2012 and 2019, Pratt—a local of New Zealand—and his fellows operating his porn web site recruited younger and underage ladies “to engage in commercial sex acts by force, fraud, and coercion.” In specific, investigators stated Pratt and co. focused younger ladies initially promoting modeling jobs, and solely when victims responded to the adverts did the porn web site hosts say they had been truly searching for folks to star in porn shoots. The ladies had been promised that their movies would solely be seen by non-public collectors in different international locations like New Zealand and Australia, and that their photos wouldn’t seem on-line, based on the FBI.

The movies went reside on-line on two web sites, GirlsDoPorn and GirlsDoToys. Pratt made tens of millions by means of his web site all whereas victimizing “hundreds of young women through the course of this conspiracy,” based on Special Agent Renee Green based mostly in San Diego, California. “He used deceit and lies and vindictiveness to torture the young women he caught in his snare.”

Pratt, who beforehand resided within the U.S., reportedly fled throughout a civil trial earlier than he could possibly be introduced in to testify and earlier than feds unsealed an indictment towards him, based on the Daily Beast.

Two different members of Pratt’s staff have already been indicted, together with the porn actor Ruben Andre Garcia of San Diego who was sentenced to twenty years for intercourse trafficking in California district court docket. Multiple ladies within the civil swimsuit alleged Garcia sexually assaulted them. Videographer Matthew Wolfe, one other member of the GirlsDoPorn staff, pleaded responsible to conspiracy to commit intercourse trafficking in addition to fraud, and he’s scheduled to be sentenced subsequent month.

Green additionally wrote that the FBI believes Pratt could possibly be hiding with assistance from folks internationally doubtlessly with the promise of items or cash.

Over 20 victims of Pratt and his crew already gained the $12.75 million civil lawsuit towards the location. Women cited within the court docket paperwork stated they had been compelled to signal contracts that didn’t give the total scope of what the location meant to do with the movies. Even after the ladies’s movies had been launched on the location, the victims stated they had been doxxed, and their private data was launched to the web. Women additionally testified that the lads refused to cease the porn shoots, and that they had been threatened with withholding their lodge reservations and aircraft tickets they had been going to make use of to return house.

The web site nonetheless lingers in spite of everything this time, and a few of the movies have circulated to different porn websites as effectively, based on earlier stories. Late final yr, a federal decide dominated that the lots of of girls coerced into doing movies on Pratt’s websites had the total rights to their movies, permitting them to hunt fines as much as $150,000 from those that publish their movies with out consent.

Pratt joins an illustrious forged of characters on the FBI’s Top Wanted checklist like “Cryptoqueen” Ruja Ignatova and the alleged chief of the MS-13 gang for Honduras, Yulan Adonay Archaga Carias.