The parent company of the pornographic site Pornhub – Aylo – has reportedly admitted to hosting adult videos featuring women who were coerced into performing sex acts on camera by a production company.
The company, Aylo Holdings, was arraigned in federal court in Brooklyn on a charge of “engaging in unlawful monetary transactions involving sex trafficking proceeds,” according to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.
“Motivated by profit, Aylo Holdings knowingly enriched itself by turning a blind eye to the concerns of victims who communicated to the company that they were deceived and coerced into participating in illicit sexual activity,” FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge James Smith said in a statement.
Aylo took money between 2017 and 2019 prosecutors say it either knew or should have known was coming from Pratt’s sex trafficking operations, according to court documents and Aylo’s own admission.
In September 2017, Aylo became aware that many of the women appearing in the GirlsDoPorn videos filed a civil lawsuit against Pratt alleging that they had been deceived into filming adult videos that were posted on Pornhub.com.
Aylo also received requests from 2016 to 2019 from the women to have the videos taken down.
It wasn’t until October 2019 that Aylo finally removed the official GirlsDoPorn channel from its platforms. However, it didn’t remove all videos from its website. And it wasn’t until December 2020, that it took down Pratt’s other channel GirlsDoToys, which featured some of the same women.
Aylo has agreed to pay a $1.8 million fine as well as to compensate victims who haven’t already been paid as part of the deferred prosecution agreement.
