DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — A DeKalb County Police sergeant is accused of using cryptocurrency to obtain access to websites that contained child sexual abuse images.
The FBI arrested DeKalb County Police Sgt. Cameron Livsey on Thursday, April 30, on one count of accessing images of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
An FBI agent filed an affidavit in support of the criminal complaint against Livsey, providing additional details about the arrest.
Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange, notified the FBI that one of its users purchased child sexual abuse material, the affidavit said. Livsey’s name and photo were attached to the account, according to the affidavit. There were no reports that the account had been hacked, Coinbase told the FBI.
The agent connected the transaction, valued at roughly $39, to a dark web site that the Internet Watch Foundation reported contained child sexual abuse material. The site could be found on Tor, a computer network designed to facilitate anonymous communication over the internet, the affidavit said.
“The Tor network does this by routing a user’s communications through a globally distributed network of relay computers, or proxies, rendering conventional IP address-based methods of identifying users ineffective,” the agent wrote.
An undercover FBI agent confirmed the site contained child sexual abuse images. The website offered a $40 monthly subscription to view images, many of which featured young children.
“As previously stated, the [suspect’s] Coinbase account made a purchase for $39, which appears to be consistent with purchasing a monthly membership,” the affidavit said.
He is accused of spending $32 worth of cryptocurrency to access child sexual abuse material on a different dark web site.
On April 30, the FBI executed a search warrant on Livsey at 1960 W. Exchange Pl., Tucker, Ga., the address of the DeKalb County Police Department headquarters. According to the affidavit, Livsey told agents he lived with his girlfriend and their 1-year-old daughter.
FBI agents seized his phone. Agents found a Tor application on the phone with bookmarked websites, including one called “Pedohub,” according to the affidavit. An agent accessed the site and found child sexual abuse images, the affidavit said. The agent also found a bookmark for one of the dark websites Livsey allegedly paid to access the images.
DeKalb police officials have launched an internal investigation of the officer and are cooperating with the FBI.
