Published October 11, 2026
Experience with audio on Experience with audio off
“When I was performing for that camera, all I had to think is that I’m doing it for the sake that we’ll earn money […] to at least survive the day”
– Kate,
13 years old when first abused
She’s in the Philippines,
“There were foreigners on the phone.
When they would call, that’s when they needed me.”
– Isa,
8 years old when first abused
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An industry of abuse
Kate shifts anxiously in her seat as a camera operator sets up the shot. Cameras make her nervous, and she doesn’t want to be identified as she tells CNN what she did when she was 13.
It was the height of Covid, and Kate’s father had just lost his job.
To keep the family afloat, her adoptive older sister Lorraine put Kate in front of the camera. CNN is using aliases for both sisters to protect Kate’s privacy.
Lorraine had been doing sex work online for some time, and asked Kate to take over a few customers she was too busy to see. Two of their neighbors were in a similar line of work and would borrow Kate from time to time when their clients requested someone younger.
At first Kate would play-act as the clients’ girlfriend, checking in on them, and asking them about their day. Soon customers asked Kate to wear lingerie and dance.
Then they said they wanted to strangle her, whip her, and asked her to use sex toys while they watched.
Her worst fear was that it wouldn’t just be on camera — that one day they’d turn up at her home in the Philippines and make her do what they wanted.
One American man had told her that he wanted to violate her with his gun.
Most victims, like Kate, are forced to produce CSAM to earn money for their family.
Kate’s story is repeated in homes across the Philippines, where nearly half a million children are forced to produce sexual content for profit, mostly for Western men, according to a 2023 report from the International Justice Mission (IJM), a non-profit that protects people in poverty against violence.
The Philippines is the epicenter of the industry for child sexual abuse material (CSAM) — one of the fastest growing crimes online. From 2015 to 2023, the US was the number one buyer of CSAM from the Philippines, according to the Philippine Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC).
From 2020 to 2022, Americans spent more than $7 million on illegal child abuse content from the Philippines, according to the AMLC report.
That number does little to illustrate the scale of the problem. CSAM is often sold for just a few dollars an image, or for access to a livestream, so the figure represents hundreds of thousands of images — and children.
And while Western men may be watching the child abuse, it’s mostly female family members who are offering up their victims. Of the 50 women who were arrested last year for sexually abusing and exploiting children online, 32 were mothers, said the Philippine National Police, pointing to similar statistics so far this year.
Kate says her relationships have been tainted by the abuse she endured as a child.
“The only reason they’re abusing a child and livestreaming it is because someone in the US is willing to pay for that abuse,” says John Tanagho, executive director of IJM’s Center to End Online Sexual Exploitation of Children.
One of those American men who sat thousands of miles away directing child sexual abuse, against Kate and others, was Carey Lee Sackmann, a Maryland man in his 60s who once worked as night operations manager for a logistics company.
“They would say sorry to me and pray to the Lord”
Isa sits between her young cousins at a shelter, where they now live after being rescued from their aunties who were livestreaming their abuse.
When asked how old they were when it all began, the youngest raises his open hand to indicate “five.”
Now 14, Isa said she had been too young to understand why men wanted to see her naked, but when her aunties filmed her at bath time, she knew it was because foreign men had told them to.
Their abuse by their aunties is well documented in court records and interviews from that time, shared with CNN.
One of them adopted the performer name “Lollie Pop,” a widely known term for CSAM, clearly advertising not just herself but the children she had access to, including Isa and her cousins.
In WhatsApp messages, Isa’s auntie, using the alias Rosy, asks a Swiss national if he wants to see videos of young girls. “You cannot find that on the internet… coz it’s a minor,” she says. Her other auntie, Che-che, tries to bargain over the price.
[perpetrator]
What you making for 200.- dollars?
Che-che
F**k my daughter with my BF… My daughter is a virgin I will not make her sacrifice without pay
Che-che
I will f**k my son for 6000
[perpetrator]
Wen I send you, you make showervideo together?
Che-che
Che-che
You like our videos, shes beautiful right?
This text conversation has been recreated based on police records. Source: Philippine National Police
The Swiss national became a repeat customer of theirs, with text messages and image descriptions detailing the abuse Isa endured at his behest. One of the PayPal accounts connected to Rosy was found with over $3,500 in it, purported to be earnings from the content they created.
Isa said the men she performed for were in different time zones and expected her to be available at any time of day. Her aunties would even pull her out of bed in the middle of the night, and let her sleep when it was over.
“We are much safer now. The pain, the fear and the trauma are gone,” Isa says, years after her rescue.
“There were foreigners on the phone. When they would call, that’s when they needed me,” she recalls. “Afterwards they would say sorry to me and pray to the Lord.”
Her aunties told them to keep the abuse a secret — a heavy burden on children who struggled to grasp what they were doing, only knowing it felt wrong. “It’s like you were scared and really had no one to tell,” Isa says.
Their case led to the conviction of a man in Switzerland and an investigation into a man in the UK, according to Isa’s current caretakers.
“Do you seek candies?”
To say that CSAM is readily available online is an understatement – it only takes a few clicks to get from public websites to private group chats selling explicit content.
CNN visited several Telegram groups advertising CSAM and interacted with users purporting to sell graphic child abuse videos. Once in the group chats, users can either buy existing content or contact the admin with more specific requests for abuse.
Within a few minutes of chatting to one purported seller, CNN was asked: “Do you seek candies bro?” “Candies” is a commonly used term for CSAM.
In the group chats, some with thousands of users, were entire menus of child abuse, listing the victims’ age and gender, the severity of sexual acts available and a price list — with some costing as little as a cup of coffee.
Editor’s note: Some words in the message below have been obscured.
With access to court documents and computer data provided by data breach monitor Alerts Bar, CNN uncovered the identities of over a dozen consumers of CSAM produced in the Philippines from several countries around the world, including the US, UK and Sweden.
They were men of varying professions: restaurant servers, mental health advocates, sustainability consultants. Some were highly educated, others were students, according to computer data and their LinkedIn profiles. Their ages ranged from 20s to 70s. Some had usernames, passwords and bios that referenced child abuse, and frequently visited websites known to host CSAM. Several of them had children and grandchildren, according to their social media profiles and publicly available personal data.
Editor’s note: Some of the profiles below contain explicit references to child abuse. All of the men named have been found guilty or admitted to crimes related to online child sex abuse.
LOCATION
Purcellville, Virginia
PROFESSION
Climate consultant
KNOWN HISTORY WITH CSAM
Chavez possessed more than 5,000 images and videos of CSAM and purchased at least 15 livestreams, often instructing the child to wear makeup or specific clothing such as a school uniform or “sexy stockings,” according to court filings. In text messages to a facilitator in the Philippines, he demanded sexual acts to be performed and grew irritated when he didn’t get what he wanted, saying “bb… I am getting mad”; “how come you don’t do what i ask”; “have her open her legs wider.” Afterwards he’d praise the minors he exploited; “tell [Minor 4] and [Minor 3] they are the BEST SHOW”.
Photo: Alexandria Sheriff’s Office
LOCATION
Linthicum Heights, Maryland
KNOWN HISTORY WITH CSAM
Turner held over a hundred calls, likely livestreams, with a facilitator in the Philippines, paying over $29,000 for child sex abuse content from the Philippines, according to the Department of Justice. Court records reveal Turner was sent a selection of nude images of children aged 9 to 13 to select a victim for a livestream. In one text exchange, he directs two minors and their trafficker to engage in sexual acts over livestream. “Tell me ‘I am a sl*t’” he orders them to say, adding “ty [thank you].”In another instance, he received images of a child between the ages of 1 and 3 being violated, according to court records. The DOJ said his CSAM collection included more than 600 images.
Photo: Maryland Department of State Police
LOCATION
St. Augustine, Florida
PROFESSION
Business owner
KNOWN HISTORY WITH CSAM
Leach told traffickers he planned to travel to the Philippines to abuse children in person. “I like all ages. 3 is y[ou]ng[e]st Ife f**ked so far tho,” he told them, requesting that the trafficker send photos and videos ahead of his arrival and asked to use PayPal to hide the transactions from his wife. When the trafficker failed to secure videos of the child Leach requested, saying they were too busy with schoolwork, Leach said, “no prob, it happens, its part of paying for those kinds of services… win some lose some.”
Photo illustration: Adobe Stock
LOCATION
Melbourne, Florida
KNOWN HISTORY WITH CSAM
Caudill was already on “Sex Offender Probation,” when he was found to have abused two siblings aged 7 and 12 in the Philippines. The children were trafficked by their mother, who had four more children and forced all of them to produce CSAM, according to US law enforcement.
Photo: Brevard County Sheriff’s Office
Years to undo the damage
The migration of abusers from the dark web to encrypted chat groups and livestreams has made it near impossible for law enforcement officers to keep up with the growth of the industry. Their traditional methods of investigation, like infiltrating groups to track offenders, are exceptionally difficult to use in one-on-one chats and livestreams.
“Normally a CSAM investigation includes media files that were traded or produced, but with livestreaming the involved parties have learned not to record their sessions,” said one US federal investigator who works on CSAM cases.
“In these cases, it is very hard to catch someone ‘in the act’ and charge them with a crime,” he said, requesting anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on the issue.
Political obstacles have also impeded investigations, according to several current and former US law enforcement officers who spoke to CNN, also anonymously to avoid repercussions at work.
One of the main law enforcement agencies tasked with tackling CSAM in the US is Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), which falls under the Department of Homeland Security.
HSI officers investigate suspected offenders in the US and often share intelligence with international and local law enforcement teams, so offenders can be apprehended and any victims located – like Kate, who was rescued by Philippines National Police after a tip-off from US law enforcement.
“Livestream child sexual abuse is one of the fastest growing and least detected forms of child abuse globally. It’s an easy crime to commit,” says Tanagho of IJM.
However, in the last two years, some investigators told CNN these efforts have been stymied by domestic priorities – including President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
When Trump returned to the White House in January 2025 with a vow to target undocumented migrants, nearly 90% of all Homeland Security Investigations agents – more than 6,000 people – were diverted to immigration enforcement activities, according to data obtained by the Cato Institute, a DC-based libertarian thinktank.
It’s not clear how many officers working exclusively on CSAM were redeployed to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) duties, but investigators told CNN that the reassignments had caused some leads to go cold and estimated it would take years to undo the damage.
The online CSAM ecosystem moves fast with groups disappearing and respawning under new names every few months to cover their tracks.
“It’s hard to start a new investigation, gain headway just to be sent away for 60 days on an immigration assignment,” one investigator said. “When you return, it’s almost like you have to restart the investigation all over.”
HSI did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
In 2010, when FBI officers raided the home of one of Kate’s abusers, Maryland man Carey Lee Sackmann, they seized several electronic devices that revealed he’d been using multiple Skype accounts to communicate with facilitators and access livestreams of children engaging in sex acts since 2015.
Roughly 1 in every 100 children is trafficked to produce child sexual abuse material in the Philippines, according to an IJM study published in 2023.
The FBI had been tipped off by officers from the Philippine National Police, who had identified Sackmann from recovered Western Union wire transfer receipts connected to a known trafficker in the Philippines. A joint FBI and HSI investigation found that he’d been in contact with several other facilitators, including Kate’s sister. Sackmann’s youngest victim was estimated to be just 6 years old.
Skype was retired by its owners Microsoft in 2025 as the company shifted its focus to Teams. In a statement, Microsoft told CNN it takes “proactive steps to deter, detect and disrupt child exploitation in all forms across our services.” CNN shared three of Sackmann’s Skype account names with Microsoft; they did not respond when asked if they had shut them down either before or after his arrest.
Offenders are also reaching their victims through end-to-end encrypted messaging apps including Viber, WhatsApp and Telegram, according to survivors and court documents seen by CNN.
Encrypted messaging apps give abusers a degree of privacy and makes child sex abuse material difficult to detect.
When asked for comment, WhatsApp referred CNN to its website that says it scans unencrypted data including profile images and descriptions for CSAM, and relies on reports from other users. Each month, it says it takes action against hundreds of thousands of accounts for suspected CSAM activity.
Viber, owned by Japanese tech giant Rakuten, says the platform uses automated tools to detect child nudity in its Channels and Communities. “We also have a trained team of human moderators who review signals and user reports and take action when violations are found,” it said in a statement.
Telegram publishes a daily report on the number of child abuse related channels it’s banned – claiming to have shut down more than 400,000 so far in 2026. Telegram spokesperson Devon Spurgeon acknowledged that banned users often try to create new accounts, but said the company works to quickly identify these attempts and requires all accounts to be tied to an active phone number, “making repeated attempts to evade a ban more costly, complicated and risky.”
Worthy of love
Kate, now 20 and living apart from her family, says she used to dream about having a husband one day, saving all her firsts for him. But after years of abuse, she says she feels “dirty.”
“Like I’m not worthy to be loved by anyone, or I’m not allowed to have a partner in the future,” she said.
Sackmann is serving a 10-year prison sentence, less than the typical 15-year sentence for producing child abuse material, partly because he paid his victims $50,000 in restitution as part of a plea agreement, according to his sentencing records. Kate says she received $6,300.
In sentencing Sackmann, the judge said his actions could, “in some sense, be explained by a perception of unreality and detachment.” Yet, he added, “they also evince a frightening lack of empathy.”
He’ll be on supervised release for another seven years, by which time US authorities hope he will have lost “most interest in engaging in sexual activities,” the document said.
Sackmann’s sentencing records refer to the lack of “physical abuse committed by the defendant himself” as a mitigating factor but adds “the facts remain troubling.”
“The number of victims is unusually large for what is, in essence, a production case,” the document said.
For her part in the abuse, Kate’s sister was charged with qualified human trafficking and was sentenced to 33 years in prison — a sentence three times longer than Sackmann’s.
I am the main reason my sister got in jail… I’m the reason why we are suffering.– Kate, child sexual abuse survivor
Kate says she has forgiven her sister and chose not to testify against her in court.
In the years since her rescue, Kate has undergone therapy, found faith, and made significant progress in her recovery. She’s currently studying social work to help others in her situation.
Yet, she says she still has feelings of guilt that her sister’s in prison, and she views herself as a “curse” on her family.
“I am the main reason my sister got in jail … I’m the reason why we are suffering.”
For support for survivors contact IJM Philippines and the Philippine Survivor Network at ijm.org.ph
To report CSAM online contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Cyber Tipline