Italian National Sentenced to Over 26 Years in Prison for International Child Exploitation and Money Laundering

MIAMI – An Italian national has been sentenced to 320 months in federal prison for using social media and online payments to entice minor victims in the United States and around the world to produce and send him sexually explicit images of themselves.

U.S. District Judge Roy K. Altman imposed the sentence on Marco Pagano, 41, following his guilty plea on February 25 to charges of child exploitation and international promotional money laundering.

According to court documents and statements made in court, Pagano engaged in illegal online exchanges with multiple minor victims, including four victims between the ages of 14 and 16 living in the United Kingdom. Pagano used online payment systems to pay those minor victims to create sexually explicit photographs and videos and send them to him through a social media application. For the four minor victims living in the United Kingdom, Pagano used his online payment accounts more than 180 times to send thousands of dollars from the United States. More broadly, Pagano’s online accounts revealed more than one thousand payments made in small denominations to victims across the world.

In addition to his prison sentence, Pagano was ordered to serve 15 years of supervised release. The court will determine restitution at a later date. 

U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida and Special Agent in Charge Brett D. Skiles of FBI Miami made the announcement.

FBI Miami investigated the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Zachary A. Keller prosecuted the case.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse, launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

Anyone with information relating to child sexual exploitation or abuse is encouraged to call the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI.

Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at www.flsd.uscourts.gov or at http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov, under case number 24-cr-20360.

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