Wilowski-Mevorah pleaded guilty to laundering money for the international subscription-based website, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) wrote. She began working for the site in 2009 and used created payment-processing and bank accounts under a non-existent jewelry company to launder the website’s finances.

The website, whose servers were in the U.S. and Europe, recruited boys and girls under the age of 18 to take sexualized photos and videos. The site sold approximately 4.6 million such pictures and videos and made $9.4 million during its operation.

The Newstar website sold images of kids as young as age 6 posed in “sexual and provocative” ways, the DOJ wrote. Some of the kids wore “police and cheerleader costumes, thong underwear, transparent underwear, revealing swimsuits, pantyhose, and miniskirts,” the department added.

Many of the children were recruited through the website from Eastern European countries like Ukraine and Moldova. The children were particularly vulnerable due to their young age, family dynamics and poverty, investigators said.

Wilowski-Mevorah was one of six U.S. suspects charged in connection to the website.

The number of incidents of online child sexual exploitation has increased since the start of the pandemic, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), a national nonprofit focused on the abduction, abuse and exploitation of children.

Online child sex exploitation occurs when people use social media, web cameras, cell phones or live streams to groom, coerce and expose children into participating in or viewing illegal sex acts.

The number of reports dramatically increased amid more children staying home and using computers due to nationwide school closures in response to the ongoing pandemic.

“[It] has put a huge strain on law enforcement around the world, who are dealing with a pandemic and all of these reports coming in at the same time,” John Shehan, head of the center’s exploited children division, told Los Angeles Times.

While child sex traffickers target children of all ages, the NCMEC says, the trauma for victims can last for decades. Often, survivors of online child sexual exploitation will fear that their images may be shared on the web for all to see or worry about being recognized from their images, feeling a shattered sense of safety and self-ownership.