Visa and Mastercard failed to stop their payment networks from laundering proceeds from child sexual abuse material and sex trafficking on the increasingly popular website OnlyFans, Reuters reported, citing a previously undisclosed complaint filed with the US Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).
The whistleblower alleged that two giant companies knew their networks were being used to pay for illegal content on a porn site since at least 2021, accusing them of “turning a blind eye to flows of illicit revenue.” The complaint was filed in January 2023 with FinCEN and the US Justice and Homeland Security departments. Federal agents confirmed the existence of child sexual abuse material on OnlyFans, according to the complaint.
On OnlyFans, Visa and Mastercard process payments between content creators and their customers. When the content is child sexual abuse material, the card-issuing companies “directly handle the proceeds of these illicit transactions,” the source said.
However, Mastercard and Visa said they had not heard of the whistleblower complaint in 2023 until they were contacted by Reuters. They disputed the allegations in the complaint and cited their efforts to protect their networks from illegal activity. Meanwhile, a Visa spokesperson said financial institutions and merchants that failed to comply with “robust compliance requirements” would be excluded from its network.
Reuters found more allegations of child sexual abuse and sex trafficking on OnlyFans since the whistleblower complaint was filed. The pornography-focused site makes money through subscriptions and paid viewing of content.
A Mastercard spokesperson called Reuters’ findings of child sexual abuse on OnlyFans “alarming” but said law enforcement or certain child advocacy groups would need to provide evidence of illegal activity for the company to act or investigate.
In May 2021, the BBC detailed several instances of explicit videos involving underage teenagers on OnlyFans. Three months later, 102 members of Congress demanded that the Justice Department investigate alleged child sexual abuse material on OnlyFans. The department declined to comment on the status of the request.
OnlyFans is one of the fastest growing and most profitable platforms for content creators in the world. It relies heavily on payment cards to process subscriptions, tips and other transactions between its more than 300 million users and four million content creators.
In September 2023, OnlyFans reported $6.6bn in gross payments to creators in September, up 20% from a year earlier. Many porn sites are free and make money mainly from advertising, whereas OnlyFans takes 20 per cent of the revenue its creators earn from selling content to subscribers.
