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Former FBI contractor accused of grooming dozens of boys, soliciting child pornography



A former FBI contractor from Arlington, Virginia, has been indicted for allegedly grooming dozens of children and soliciting child pornography.

Brett William Janes, who began working for the FBI in May and previously worked for another unspecified intelligence agency, engaged with "roughly a dozen" young boys over Discord and Snapchat.

According to the Department of Justice, Janes groomed his victims by flashing his badge and "telling them he worked for a U.S. intelligence agency before repeatedly threatening suicide if the minors did not continue to communicate with him."

In one instance, the former FBI contractor successfully enticed a young boy he had met via the video game "Valorant" to "strip and masturbate over a live video Discord call," both by paying him hundreds of dollars over CashApp and again threatening to kill himself, said the DOJ.

Janes allegedly also had a 12-year-old boy create and send him child pornography via Discord "through flattery and repeated begging."

The DOJ said that in addition to soliciting and acquiring child pornography from these and other minor victims, Janes allegedly purchased hundreds of videos and images of child sex abuse material over Telegram and attempted to meet up with a minor.

Charging documents indicate that after learning one victim was only 14, Janes tried to have him come over to his house.

Paul Fisher, a special agent with the FBI Washington field office's Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force, indicated in his affidavit supporting Janes' arrest — which took place on May 31 — that the investigation into the accused kicked off in February after a concerned father notified police in Galloway Township, New Jersey, that he had discovered his son had been communicating with an adult over Discord.

Washington-based FBI agents began pursuing the case after agents in Atlantic City, New Jersey, provided them with a lead on April 21, 2023.

The former FBI contractor appears to have made it relatively easy for investigators to track him down, having sent pictures of the badges he used to access federal buildings to his victims. His IP address, email address, and phone number also reportedly corresponded the offending Discord account.

A federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia indicted him Wednesday on two counts of sexual exploitation of children and production of child pornography, one count of attempting coercion and enticement, and one count of receipt of child pornography.

If convicted, he will serve at least 15 years in prison and could face life in prison.

WUSA-TV noted that anyone who believes they or someone they know may have been victimized by Janes should contact the FBI at 202-278-2000.

Court documents indicated his username on Discord was "revision#3409."

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Researchers have traced a major leak of U.S. classified documents about the war between Ukraine and Russia to a gamer-centric chat app called Discord, Bellingcat and the Associated Press reported.

"We don't know. We truly don't know," National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby told reporters Monday on whether the leaks present an ongoing threat.

Kirby said the the Department of Defense has referred the matter to the Department of Justice for a criminal investigation. He added that President Biden was briefed late last week on the leaks and had stayed in contact with national security officials over the weekend.

Thursday, the New York Times reported on the documents appearing on Twitter and Telegram.
Researchers from Bellingcat, however, have traced the origin of the leak farther back in time and to a different app called Discord, where documents circulated as early as January 13.

Discord is a chat app popular with gamers but is used by a wide variety of other communities, like bird watchers, fans of television shows, and even college professors holding classes. The platform offers chat, voice, and video channels.

Aric Toler, Director of Training and Research at Bellingcat, traced ten documents with "Top Secret" markings about Ukraine to a Discord server called "Minecraft Earth Map" posted March 4. He says that leak was spurred by a spat between users, one of whom attached the bevy of documents, apparently to win an argument.

Bellingcat is "independent investigative collective of researchers, investigators and citizen journalists brought together by a passion for open source research" founded in 2014.

Seven items from the ten-document trove on the Minecraft Earth Map server later appeared on 4chan and Telegram.

Tracing even further back in time, Toler notes that on March 1 and March 2, more than 30 documents were posted to another Discord server called WowMao. Though he had seen those posts, he could not independently verify their authenticity.

Stepping back in time for a final time, posts in the same style and formatting as those posted to Discord's WowMao server apparently also appeared on a now-deleted server called Thug Shaker Central January 13. Toler also could not independently verify the authenticity of these posts.

The Thug Shaker Central document screenshots were reportedly provided to him by members of the Thug Shaker Central community in the form of intentionally blurred screenshots. Those who provided the screenshots told Toler the files leaked to WowMao were only "the tip of the iceberg" compared to the material shared on Thug Shaker Central.

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