Thousands of Ghanaians have over the past five years expressed high interest in the barred sex leak website, Empressleak, to watch sexually explicit videos and leaks of people in Ghana and other African countries.
Empressleak which served as the hub for obscene materials, until recently, was one of the popular sites in Ghana due to its content. Over 8,000 people visited the site on a daily basis and more than 1,000 of these visitors were reported to be Ghanaians.
According to Google Trends Data made available to GhanaWeb, Empressleak was in the top 50 most searched terms in Google Search making it one of the most popular top search queries across the country from the year 2016 to 2020.
In 2016, Empressleak was the 34th most searched item on google; the following year, it was the 26th. It witnessed a sharp increase in 2019 as the 19th most searched term. By the second quarter of 2020, it dropped to 25 after the arrest of the site’s administrator.
The 35-year-old Anderson Ofosu Hene Anim popularly known as Mario G was arrested in a joint operation by the Cyber Crime Unit of the Criminal Investigation Department and the Ministry of Communications on August 14, 2020, while operating from his home in Osino, a town in the Eastern Region.
He was charged with child pornography, the publication of obscene materials, cybercrime and money laundering. Head of the National Cyber Security Centre, Dr Albert Antwi-Boasiako in a press conference dated August 14, 2020, noted that Empressleak has been in existence for the past 6 years.
On Wednesday, August 19, 2020, an Accra Circuit Court granted him a bail of GH¢300,000. However, his case has been adjourned to October 12, 2020.
Source: www.ghanaweb.com
